Photos, videos and files

Send photos, videos, documents and other files in any chat or thread, and open, save or share the files other people send.

Attach photos, videos and files

In a chat or thread, tap + (Add attachment). A panel with your photo library opens.
Select photos and videos in the panel and confirm, or tap Photos to browse your whole library. To take a photo, tap Camera.
Check your selection on the review screen and send it.

To send a document, tap Document and pick one PDF, Word, Excel, plain text or ZIP file. It’s sent right away, with any text in the message box as its caption.

The camera takes photos only; you can’t record videos or voice messages in DonutChat. In the main conversation, the same panel also has Poll and, on iPhone, Android and the web app, Ladder game (see Polls and the ladder game). Thread replies support attachments but not polls or games.

Review before sending

On iPhone, Android and the web app, the photos and videos you pick open on a review screen.

Swipe between items, or select a thumbnail.
To add more, select Add more. To leave an item out, select the trash button (Remove on iPhone, Delete on Android).
To change a photo, select Edit (see Edit a photo).
Type in Add a caption… and select Send.

When your selection includes a video, iPhone and Android show an HD toggle. It’s on by default and keeps videos at higher quality; turn it off to send smaller videos. It doesn’t affect photos.

All the photos go out together in one message. Each video is sent as its own message, and the caption goes with the first message.

Edit a photo

On iPhone, Android and the web app, select Edit on the review screen. Your edits apply to the photo you send; the original in your photo library doesn’t change.

Tool	What you can do
Crop	Choose Free or a fixed ratio: 1:1, 4:3, 16:9, 3:4 or 9:16. Rotate turns the photo 90°.
Draw	Draw with Pen or Highlight in 10 colors and adjustable thickness, remove your strokes with Eraser, or pixelate parts of the photo with Mosaic.
Text	Select Add Text, type your text, then select Done. Choose a color and size for the text. Drag text to move it (on a touch screen you can also pinch to resize it), or select it to edit or Delete it.

Use Undo and Redo to step through up to 50 changes. Select Done to keep your edits, or Cancel and then Discard to drop them. You can’t edit videos or photos that are already sent.

Scan a document

On iPhones that support document scanning, the attachment panel includes Scan document (experiment). It turns paper pages into a PDF that you send to the chat or thread.

Tap +, then Scan document (experiment). Allow camera access if asked.
Scan your pages, then tap Save in the scanner.
Check every page of the PDF.
Turn on I reviewed every PDF page, then tap Attach and send PDF. To discard the scan instead, tap Cancel.

A scan can have up to 5 pages and 20 MiB. Nothing is uploaded until you confirm, and a scan you don’t confirm within 10 minutes expires.

Paste or drop files

iPhone: copy an image, then use Paste or Paste photo in the message box.
Android: long-press the message box and choose Paste photo, press Ctrl+V on a hardware keyboard, or insert an image from your keyboard.
Web: paste an image with Ctrl+V or ⌘V. Your browser may ask for permission to use the clipboard.
Desktop: paste files with ⌘V or Ctrl+V, or drag files onto the conversation. Only the desktop app supports drag and drop.

On iPhone and Android, pasted images appear above the message box; tap Remove to leave one out. When you send, the text you typed becomes the caption.

Supported files and size limits

DonutChat accepts these files up to these sizes. The desktop app has a lower limit for videos and audio, described below.

Kind	Formats	Maximum size
Photos	JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, HEIC/HEIF	10 MiB
Videos	MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM	100 MiB
Audio	MP3, M4A, OGG, WAV, WebM	50 MiB
Documents	PDF, Word (DOC, DOCX), Excel (XLS, XLSX), plain text (TXT)	20 MiB
ZIP archives	ZIP	Below 50 MB

Other formats, such as PowerPoint, CSV or HTML files, can’t be sent, and files can’t be empty.

How each app handles file size:

iPhone and Android optimize photos and videos before sending, so large camera photos normally fit. Turn on HD for higher-quality video. A video fails only if it’s still over 100 MiB after optimizing. Animated GIFs are sent as still images.
Desktop sends files as they are. Each file can be up to 20 MiB (ZIP files below 50 MB), and photos must still be 10 MiB or smaller.
Web sends files as they are, so each file must be within the limits in the table.

To send an audio file from iPhone or Android, share it into DonutChat from another app. In the desktop app, attach it like any other file. The web app can’t attach audio files.

Upload progress and retries

On iPhone and Android:

Your message appears in the chat right away and shows upload progress. To stop it, tap Cancel under the message.
If an upload fails, tap Retry or Cancel. Retry continues from the file that failed, so finished files aren’t uploaded again.
A group of photos is sent only after every file has uploaded. Uploads keep going if you switch to another screen in the app.
Long-press a pending or failed message for Copy message, Retry, Delete or Cancel.
If the files uploaded but DonutChat couldn’t confirm the message, Retry asks you to Confirm, and Close removes the pending message. Check the conversation first so you don’t post it twice.

In the desktop app, files stay staged above the message box until you send. If delivery is uncertain, the app says so and doesn’t resend on its own. Check the conversation, or click Discard this pending batch.

On iPhone and Android:

Tap a photo to open it full screen. Pinch or double-tap to zoom, swipe to move between the photos in a message, and swipe down or tap Close to exit.
Tap Download for Save to Gallery, Save All to Gallery (when there are several photos), Share and View Details (file name, size, dimensions and type).
In the chat, long-press a photo for Save image and Share image.
Tap a video to open the Video Player. Its Download button offers Save to Gallery and Share.
Saving needs access to your photo library. If you see “Photo library access denied”, allow access for DonutChat in your phone’s settings.

The web app uses the same viewer and video player. Save to Gallery downloads the file, and Share uses your browser’s share options.

In the desktop app, click a photo to preview it and click Open in browser to open the full file in your browser; there’s no save button in the app. Videos play right in the conversation.

Open documents and audio

App	What happens when you open a file
iPhone	It downloads and opens in a preview, where you can also use the share options.
Android	It downloads and opens in an app on your phone that can view it. If no app can, you see “Failed to open document”.
Desktop	Click Open in browser on the file to open it in your default browser. Audio files play in the conversation.
Web	The file downloads to your computer.

On iPhone, Android and the web app, audio files appear as file rows and open the same way as documents.

Chat storage

Each chat has a storage allowance for the files uploaded to it.

To check a chat’s storage on iPhone, Android or the web app, open the chat and select Chat info > Shared content. The Storage card shows how much of the chat’s allowance is used; select it for details. From 90%, the details show that storage is almost full.

If an upload would take the chat past its allowance, the app doesn’t upload it and shows Manage, which opens the storage details. The desktop app doesn’t show chat storage.

Clear downloaded media

On iPhone and Android, DonutChat keeps images, videos and files downloaded from chats on your phone. To free up that space, go to Profile > Tools & content > Clear cache, tap Clear Cache Now and confirm with Clear. This also clears other cached data, such as locally stored chat history. Your messages and files stay in your chats. For other settings, see Settings.