Understand who can access a conversation

Wondering who's who in a conversation? This article covers how to see and manage all the different types of participants in a conversation, who can see conversations, and when they can access them.

A conversation is "owned" by the account in which it was created

If you or any team members in your account create a new conversation while logged in and viewing your account, this new conversation is "owned" by your account.

Conversations have participants and subscribers (with various options explained below).

Where to manage the people in a conversation

Open the conversation → Settings. The first tab is Access (it still shows participant avatars). It has three sub-tabs:

Access — public vs private, auto-lock, and archive or close
Participants — registered users in this conversation
Subscribers — email-only notification addresses (public conversations only)

The fastest way in is still to click the avatars at the top right of the conversation.

Participants vs. subscribers

When you open Access, you'll see Participants and Subscribers. What's the difference?

Participants:

Participants are registered Clarityflow users. When they post messages in a conversation, their name and avatar are shown as the author.

Participants will also receive email notifications when new messages are posted and when their messages have been played back.

Team members vs. Guests:

Participants can either be team members in the account that owns this conversation (the conversation's URL will include this account's slug) or "guests" who are registered Clarityflow users (respondents or other Clarityflow users) but not team members in this conversation's account.

Subscribers:

Subscribers are not registered Clarityflow users, meaning they do not have a login. Subscribers simply represent email addresses that will be notified when new messages are posted to this conversation.

For more information on how Subscribers work, see this guide.

Anonymous users

If a conversation is public ("anyone with the link can view"), and if this conversation link is shared with anyone who does not register, then those people are anonymous/unidentified people who can view your conversation.

Anonymous users can also post replies to a conversation and opt to post those anonymously—unless "allow anonymous replies" has been disabled in this conversation's settings.

Close a conversation to remove access

Public vs private controls who can enter via the link. Close conversation goes further: guests who were already participants lose access too, including from old email links.

Turn it on under Access → Access → Archive or close access → Close conversation. Only team members in the account that owns the conversation can still open it.

You'll see a lock icon on the conversation in your list, and guest avatars fade to 50% opacity.

Closing is not the same as archiving. Archiving only hides the conversation from your main list; guests keep the access they had unless you also close it. See Archive conversations and Close a conversation or thread and prevent replies.

Related guides

Close a conversation or thread and prevent replies — Making a conversation private isn't the only way to limit access. Closing it blocks your guests even if they still hold an old link, and closing messages lets them read without posting.

Archive conversations — Worth knowing what archiving doesn't do: it has no effect on access. An archived conversation is still open to everyone who could reach it before. If you're archiving in order to lock people out, you want Close conversation instead.

Auto-lock Conversations & Threads — You can have access wind down on its own — for example, closing a conversation to guests a set number of weeks after the last message.

Finding archived or closed conversations or threads — If a conversation has vanished from your list, it's usually archived or closed rather than deleted. This shows you where to look.