A little help.
Back to your people.

Tap one of your reactions on the call bar, or More reactions for the rest. It swings round your face and drifts away for everyone in the call. Hold it for a burst. In a lounge you can send your server’s own emoji too, and during a screen share reactions rise along the shared screen’s edge. When a lounge call shrinks to a strip in the sidebar, it keeps a Send a reaction button, except on touch screens and in narrow windows, where you open the lounge to react. To stop seeing one person’s reactions, choose Hide their reactions in their call controls, or Hide reactions in their menu. That only changes what you see on this device.

When a friend turns on Show my local time, your conversation shows their time of day along the top. Late at night for them, Send for their morning schedules your message for 09:00 their time, and the schedule options include their morning. Same sky notices when you’re in the same game or listening to the same artist; your own activity counts only while you share it, never while you’re Invisible.

Drag a conversation into Pinned to keep it at the top, in the order you like, and drag it out to unpin it. While you drag, Drop here to pin shows where to let go. Conversations you haven’t pinned keep following the latest message. With a keyboard or on a phone, open the menu beside the sidebar heading and choose Arrange pinned. In a community, people who manage channels can drag channels into order or choose Arrange channels; everyone there sees that order.

Open the community menu and choose Your nickname. It can be up to 32 characters and only shows in that community, on your messages and in the member list. Leave it empty to use your name. Moderators can reset a nickname.

Open Settings → Profile → Birthday to add a day and month. Orbis never asks for the year. Choose Only me to keep it to yourself, or Friends to let friends see candles round your moon on the day and the date on your profile. The week before a friend’s birthday, your conversation offers Write something for their morning, which schedules a note for 09:00 their time, or yours if they don’t share a local time. Friendships and groups get a small card at a month, six months, a year and every year after. Older friendships use an approximate date. Close any card to hide it on that device. You can remove your birthday any time.

Open Plans, games and scrapbook → Plans → Find a time. Type a few times, like fri 8pm, sat noon, or pick a date and time. Everyone sees them in their own time zone and taps the ones they can make. The host chooses Lock it to turn the best time into a Plan with everyone who can make it already In. When everyone in a ready check is ready, the group gets the same 3, 2, 1. Anyone who’s ready can choose Hold on to stop the countdown for everyone.

Open Plans, games and scrapbook in a group or community channel and choose Brightest. When enough people react to a message with the star reaction, it rises into a shared night sky, and a small star appears by its time. People who manage a community, or own a group, switch it on, choose the star and decide whether 3, 5 or 10 people light it; the author’s own reaction doesn’t count. This week starts again every Monday. You only ever see stars from conversations you can read.

Type @ and choose @time, or type @time and a space, then a time such as fri 8pm, tomorrow noon or in 2 hours. Pick a suggestion with Enter, Tab or a tap. Everyone sees the same moment in their own time zone, and hovering shows the full date and zone. Choose how it shows under Show as, or pick any date with Exact date and time. This shares a time; it doesn’t schedule the message or notify anyone. When clocks change, Orbis tells you if a time is skipped or happens twice.

While connected to a call, open Activities. Try Trivia Sprint, Word Scramble or Four in Orbit. Open a lobby and let your friends join, then start. Trivia and word races have five timed rounds for up to 16 players. Four in Orbit has two seats; everyone else can watch. You can leave an activity without leaving the call. Pick a Side, Plans and What to play are still available in the same panel.

Open a profile to see Friends and Mutual friends. Sharing is on by default. In Settings → Privacy & security → Visibility, turn off Share friends list to keep your friendships out of other people’s profile lists and mutual-friend counts. You can always see your own accepted friends.

Open the sign-in page, enter your email or username, then choose Forgot password? to request a reset link. Check that you entered your account email, then look in your spam folder. If a reset link has expired, request a new one. Still stuck? Email us with your username and what you see on screen.

Sign in with your email and password. If your email isn’t confirmed yet, Orbis offers to send a 6-digit code; enter it to finish. A code works for 10 minutes, and you can ask for a new one after a minute. Check your spam folder too. Verification and password reset are separate steps.

Use the code from your authenticator app, or choose the recovery-code option during sign-in if you saved one. Each recovery code works once. In Settings → Privacy & security, you can review signed-in devices and sign them out. Orbis may ask you to confirm your identity first. Never send us your password, authenticator codes or recovery codes.

Open Settings → Privacy & security → Export account data. Review the scope and choose an optional date range, then download the JSON file. It includes your profile, preferences, connections and accessible messages you wrote, including private notes. File details are included; media files and other people’s message text are not. Save attachments individually from their conversations. Orbis may ask you to verify your identity first. Export before closing your account, keep the copy private and check your browser’s downloads for completion.

Open Settings → Privacy & security → Close account. First, transfer ownership of your communities and any groups with other members. Closing your account signs out every device, ends your participation in calls and hides your private profile. Shared messages and their attachments stay in conversations under Deleted account. Your username remains reserved. If your account was closed by mistake or without your permission, contact support within 30 days. Recovery requires proof that the account belongs to you and a new password; previous sessions and secret-chat device access are not restored. After that window, remaining recovery data is scheduled for permanent removal. Other people may still have copies of content you shared; closing an account does not erase those copies or immediately remove older backups.

Check Settings → Notifications, your Do Not Disturb status and whether the conversation is muted. For desktop alerts, choose Enable on this browser in Notifications. Your browser must also allow notification permission; if it is blocked, change that in your browser’s site settings. In the Windows desktop app 0.1.13 or later, the app asks for itself instead: choose Allow. In supported browsers, separately enable Alerts while Orbis is closed for message alerts with no Orbis tab open. On iPhone or iPad, add Orbis to your Home Screen and enable them from there. Your device’s Focus and sound settings can silence alerts. Muting alerts does not remove unread messages.

Keep Orbis open for incoming calls and Orbis ringtones. Background message alerts use your device’s notification sound settings instead. In the Windows desktop app 0.1.13 or later, closing the window keeps Orbis running in the tray, so calls, alerts and message sounds carry on. Right-click its tray icon to quit, or turn this off in Settings → Audio → Keep Orbis running. Earlier versions quit when you close the window and leave any call.

While you share your screen in an Orbis call, alerts wait until you stop. Choose Show anyway from the moon in the dock to see them sooner.

Starting or answering a direct or group call joins straight away using your saved microphone settings; choosing a video call also requests your camera. The first call lets you choose a microphone; later calls and community voice channels use your saved selection. Allow microphone or camera access when prompted, and use the call’s device settings to check your selection and whether it is muted. If speaker selection is unavailable, use your device’s sound settings. After a disconnected call, rejoining keeps your microphone and camera off until you turn them on.

Someone too quiet or too loud? Open the menu on their tile, or right-click it, to set their volume from 0 to 400% or mute them just for you. Orbis remembers it on this device for your next calls; Reset puts them back to 100% and unmutes them.

If Orbis says calling is unavailable, or the problem continues, tell us your browser, device and the exact error. You can keep using messages while you troubleshoot.

Games and music each have their own switch in Settings → Activity, and both start on. If you turned music sharing off before, it stays off. Anyone who can see your profile sees your activity: on your profile, in direct messages and in member lists. Invisible status hides it, and so does blocking someone, deleting your account or closing it. Your last-seen setting doesn’t hide it.

To recognise games, Orbis for desktop checks the names, install folders and start times of programs on your computer. On Windows 0.1.16 and later, it also checks whether each has a window open, so a game left running in the tray isn’t shown. Only the game’s name and when you started it are shared, never your process list, command arguments or window titles. Not every game is recognised yet. A game’s picture comes from its Steam store page or, for a few games not on Steam, from the publisher’s own icon or logo. To find a picture for a game Orbis doesn’t list, Orbis’s server looks the game’s name up on Steam, without saying who is playing. Orbis fetches and keeps the pictures itself, so your browser only ever talks to Orbis.

On Windows, Orbis for desktop 0.1.15 or later automatically shares what dedicated music apps, such as Spotify, report to Windows: the title, artist, app and playback position. Music in a browser is shared only when you allow it with Also share music from browsers, or by choosing that player yourself. Settings shows exactly what others see.

Your profile can show Favorite games you pick, and Recently played and Most played, which Orbis fills from game activity while game sharing is on. Choose favorites, hide or remove a game, or clear your game history in Settings → Activity, and switch Show games on my profile off to keep them to yourself.

Hidden games never show to others, and stay hidden when you clear your history or play them again. Nobody you blocked, or who blocked you, sees your games. Invisible pauses Recently played. With game sharing off, nothing new is added and others see only your favorites. If you hide when you were last online, others don’t see when you last played. Your private statistics are never used to fill these.

In desktop 0.1.4 or later, turn the small call overlay on or off in Settings → Audio; it starts enabled. The overlay appears at the left of the screen when Orbis is in the background. It shows speaking, mute and deafen state without taking mouse clicks from your other app. Some exclusive fullscreen or protected games can cover it. For a larger view, use the call’s Pop out button to move and resize the call in its own window, including on another monitor.

Open your community’s settings and choose Soundboard. People with Manage emoji and sounds permission can add up to ten MP3 clips per community. Each clip can last up to 20 seconds and be up to 2 MB. You can play your communities’ sounds from the soundboard in a voice channel, private call or group call when your role allows speaking. One sound plays at a time. Each listener chooses their own soundboard volume, and can mute sounds from the call’s tools or in Settings → Audio; the choice stays on that device. Deafen also silences incoming sounds.

Keep each file under 1 GB, with up to six attachments per message. Uploads also have a 4 GB limit over the past 24 hours. Files over 10 MB upload in parts: if your connection drops, choose Retry to continue where it stopped. Images over 10 MB arrive as downloads rather than previews. A community channel may restrict attachments even when you can send messages. For an avatar or banner, use the image-framing tool. In a secret chat, each file can be up to 100 MB. Include the file type and error in a support request; you don’t need to send the private file itself.

A secret chat is a separate, end-to-end encrypted conversation with a friend. Send messages, photos, videos, GIFs, voice messages and files of up to 100 MB; reply, react, edit, or remove a message for both of you. In the chat’s ⋯ menu, Disappearing messages can remove new messages after 30 seconds to a week. Messages are encrypted on your devices, so Orbis can’t read them. Add a new device using an approved device or your saved recovery key. If you lose both, a new identity cannot recover earlier history. Calls and forwarding stay in your ordinary conversations. Reporting a secret message shares only what its preview shows, never the files themselves, and only after you confirm.

Choose Forward… in the message’s menu, or hover it and choose Forward. Pick up to ten conversations, add a note if you like, then send. Attachments are copied and count toward your daily upload limit. Mentions arrive as plain text, so nobody is pinged. The copy shows who first sent it and when, and can’t be edited. Messages in secret chats can’t be forwarded.

For an expired invite or channel access, ask the community’s owner or a moderator. You can block someone from their profile and review blocked people in Settings → Privacy & security. To raise a concern with Orbis, email us the relevant username, community name and a short description of what happened. Share only the details needed to explain the issue. Orbis also looks for spam patterns on its own, like one message sent to many conversations at once. It compares text inside its own systems without copying it, and only a person on the Orbis team decides whether anything happens.