Simple Machines Community Forum

SMF Development => Feature Requests => Topic started by: MegaBrutal on June 20, 2025, 10:05:45 AM

Title: Easily manageable, searchable private messages
Post by: MegaBrutal on June 20, 2025, 10:05:45 AM
Not sure if it is suggested already or is there a mod for this. Recently I browsed some of my private messages accumulated over the years. Usually I find them by remembering which year I sent or received them and who I was messaging with, but it occurred to me, would there be a better way?

I was thinking, if I navigate to someone's profile, it would be convenient to not only get the option to message them, but also to list all private conversations I had with the user. Would not need to get to my inbox and manually browse for the messages. If we're at it, SMF could also arrange PMs into conversations, to avoid the need to navigate to the outbox and find my reply separately.

On top of this, it would be awesome to be able to search in private messages with keywords.

I'm in the minority who thinks that forums are better social media than actual social media. But then it occurred to me, why can I find my conversations easier literally everywhere else than on my forum? Don't get me wrong, I understand that private messaging is not the focus of a forum, but if it's already so great in sorting and searching community threads, why not extend this awesomeness to private messages?
Title: Re: Easily manageable, searchable private messages
Post by: Sesquipedalian on June 20, 2025, 10:11:12 AM
SMF 2.1 includes both a conversations view and the ability to search in your personal messages.
Title: Re: Easily manageable, searchable private messages
Post by: MegaBrutal on June 20, 2025, 10:14:45 AM
That's awesome, I just haven't yet found it then, or I need to enable it in the admin center. :D
Sorry, I'm still haven't yet fathomed the full power of SMF 2.1. It still surprises how much more it knows compared to its predecessor.
Title: Re: Easily manageable, searchable private messages
Post by: shawnb61 on June 20, 2025, 11:36:47 AM
I would also add that SMF supports PM labels and rules (to auto-apply labels) that can help organize things.

Look in your Inbox, under Preferences, to setup rules & labels.
Title: Re: Easily manageable, searchable private messages
Post by: Oldiesmann on June 20, 2025, 08:18:13 PM
Quote from: MegaBrutal on June 20, 2025, 10:14:45 AMThat's awesome, I just haven't yet found it then, or I need to enable it in the admin center. :D
Sorry, I'm still haven't yet fathomed the full power of SMF 2.1. It still surprises how much more it knows compared to its predecessor.

Search is under the "Actions" menu in the PM area