Limits

Every limit you can run into in CHANNEL is on this page, and other pages link here rather than repeat the numbers.

These limits are tuned from time to time for performance. This page shows the numbers of the version you are using.

Messages and files

• The text of one message: 16,000 characters.
• Time to edit a message you sent: 15 minutes.
• The largest video you can send: 5 GB.
• The longest video you can send: 3 hours.
• The longest a live location share can run: 12 hours.
• The longest intro video you can record for a new contact: 10 seconds.
• The largest intro video a new contact's request holds: 8 MB.
• The largest photo, video or file you can receive: 5 GB.
• A video or file to a contact whose CHANNEL is an older version: 3 GB.
• The largest message a nearby device carries for you: 16 MB.
• How long a nearby device holds your message before it stops trying to post it: 60 minutes.
• Photos and videos picked at once: 24.
• Large files sent to one person at once; the rest wait their turn: 4.
• Share of the phone's storage CHANNEL leaves free when receiving: 10 %.
• The least storage CHANNEL leaves free when receiving: 250 MB.
• The most storage CHANNEL keeps free when receiving, however large the phone: 2 GB.
• Photos, videos or files in one share from another app, on iPhone and iPad: 10.
• Photos, videos or files in one share from another app, on Android: 24.
• Conversations and people one message is forwarded or shared to at once: 256.
• People on one broadcast list: 256.
• Longest voice message recording: 4 minutes.
• Length of one Auto Send session: 5 minutes.
• Choices in one poll: 12.
• The name of a file you send: 120 characters.
• A GIF: 25 MB.
• The longest disappearing-message timer: 90 days.
• Time before an unopened view-once message disappears: 14 days.
• Sending later, the shortest delay: 1 minute.

Groups and calls

• People in an informal group, you included: 8.
• People mentioned in one message: 8.
• People on a group call: 8.
• People on a group call with cameras on: 4.
• How long a call rings: 45 seconds.
• Life of a call link, which works once: 24 hours.
• Posts one member can have waiting for an admin in a formal group: 20.
• How long our server keeps a formal group's post: 30 days.
• Time without posts before a formal group shows a warning: 91 days.
• Time without posts before our server deletes a formal group: 122 days.
• Invitations to the same group shown from one person: 1 a day.
• Declined group invitations in a row from one person before they are blocked: 5.

Updates

• The text of an update: 700 characters.
• Length of a video in an update: 60 seconds.
• Length of a voice note in an update: 30 seconds.
• Size of a video or voice note in an update: 32 MB.
• How long your contacts see an update: 24 hours.
• Updates kept from one person at a time: 30.

Handles and finding people

• A handle: 3 to 20 lower case letters, digits and underscores.
• Handles across all your profiles: 10.
• How long a handle you give up stays yours: 30 days.
• Numbers and addresses on your card: 20.
• Life of a verification code: 10 minutes.
• Wrong entries of one verification code: 5.
• Verification codes sent to one number or address: 5 an hour.
• Life of the proof behind a verified number or address: 1 year.
• Life of a link or code for linking, sent in a message, which works once: 24 hours.
• How long an invitation left at a number, address or handle waits: 7 days.
• Invitation emails you send to people not on CHANNEL: 10 a day.
• Invitation emails to one address: 2 a week.
• Message requests shown from one person at one of your handles, numbers or addresses, until you accept one: 3 a day.
• Declines in a row from one person before they are blocked: 5.

Security

• Shortest PIN: 6 characters.
• Wrong PIN tries before CHANNEL makes you wait: 2.
• The first wait, which doubles with each wrong try: 5 seconds.
• The longest wait: 5 minutes.
• Shortest backup passphrase: 8 characters.
• Erase After Inactivity, the choices: 7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days.
• How long copied text stays when Secure Mode clears it: 1 minute.

Devices and profiles

• Devices sharing one profile, this one included: 10.
• Profiles on one phone: 10.
• Profiles on one device that are shared with other devices: 9 profiles.
• Life of the code that receives a profile, which goes to the first device that scans it: 10 minutes.
• A profile's name: 24 characters.
• Shortest period of photos and videos a newly linked device receives by itself: 7 days.
• Largest single video it receives by itself: 500 MB.
• Older photos and videos it receives by itself, in all: 4 GB.
• Sharing stays frozen after a freeze or an extension for: 7 days.
• How much older a freeze's server time may be than the one before it: 10 minutes.
• Freeze records one profile can hold: 1,024.
• Freeze records one device can add to a profile: 64.
• The note a Start Fresh request carries: 2,000 bytes.
• Two new profiles claiming one old profile are flagged within: 30 days.
• Wrong freeze PINs in a row before a device takes the profile off itself: 5.
• How long the check before sharing a profile stays good: 10 minutes.

Waiting mail

• Longest that undelivered mail waits on our server: 30 days.
• How long a half-arrived photo or video is kept on this device: 48 hours.
• The longest a contact's Internet Fallback waits: 5 minutes.
• How often a profile set to Check Regularly checks for messages: 15 minutes.

The Mac's AI

• Messages each AI may send: 10 a minute.
• Messages each AI may send: 60 an hour.
• Messages each AI may send: 200 a day.
• Contacts not yet linked whom it may invite: 6 a day.
• People it may write to for the first time, unless you set fewer: 200 a day.
• New groups it may start: 10 a day.
• Links by code it may make: 5 an hour.
• Links by code it may make: 20 a day.
• Wrong codes before link by code pauses for an hour: 10 an hour.
• Other requests each AI may make: 300 an hour.
• A message an AI sends: 4,000 characters.
• The largest file an AI can open from one message: 100 MB.
• The largest file an AI opens through MCP: 6 MB.
• Your Instructions to one AI: 8,000 characters.
• Wrong keys that close the Local API to unknown keys: 5.
• The time those wrong keys are counted over: 10 minutes.
• How long an AI's pairing lasts before you renew it: 30 days.
• Life of a code to pair an AI: 2 minutes.
• Calls kept in an AI's Activity: 2,000.
• How long Activity is kept: 30 days.
• Answers Automatic replies may send: 30 an hour.
• New people Automatic replies may answer: 200 a day.
• Its answers in one conversation: 40 a day.

English is the reference text; any translation is a convenience.