Quick Reference - Listen for incoming messages:
- Adding a listener to receive real-time messages when your app is running
- Calling a method to retrieve missed messages when your app was not running
Real-Time Messages
In other words, as a recipient, how do I receive messages when my app is running? To receive real-time incoming messages, you need to register the MessageListener wherever you wish to receive the incoming messages. You can use theaddMessageListener() method to do so.
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| listenerId | An ID that uniquely identifies that listener. |
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
onTextMessageReceived — onMediaMessageReceived — onCustomMessageReceived —
console.log("Text message received successfully", textMessage) returns:console.log("Media message received successfully", mediaMessage) returns:console.log("Custom message received successfully", customMessage) returns:- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Missed Messages
In other words, as a recipient, how do I receive messages that I missed when my app was not running? For most use cases, you will need to add functionality to load missed messages. If you’re building an on-demand or live streaming app, you may choose to skip this and fetch message history instead. Using the sameMessagesRequest class and the filters provided by the MessagesRequestBuilder class, you can fetch the messages that were sent to the logged-in user but were not delivered to them as they were offline. For this, you will require the ID of the last message received. You can either maintain it at your end or use the getLastDeliveredMessageId() method provided by the CometChat class. This ID needs to be passed to the setMessageId() method of the builder class.
Now using the fetchNext() method, you can fetch all the messages that were sent to the user when they were offline.
Calling the fetchNext() method on the same object repeatedly allows you to fetch all the offline messages for the logged-in user.
For a Particular One-on-one Conversation
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:For a Particular Group
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:Unread Messages
In other words, as a logged-in user, how do I fetch the messages I’ve not read? Using theMessagesRequest class described above, you can fetch the unread messages for the logged-in user. In order to achieve this, you need to set the unread variable in the builder to true using the setUnread() method so that only the unread messages are fetched.
For a Particular One-on-one Conversation
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:For a Particular Group
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:Base Message: The list of messages received is in the form of objects of
BaseMessage class. A BaseMessage can either be an object of the TextMessage, MediaMessage, CustomMessage, Action or Call class. You can use the instanceOf operator to check the type of object.Message History
In other words, as a logged-in user, how do I fetch the complete message history?For a Particular One-on-one Conversation
Using theMessagesRequest class and the filters for the MessagesRequestBuilder class as shown in the below code snippet, you can fetch the entire conversation between the logged-in user and any particular user. For this use case, it is mandatory to set the UID parameter using the setUID() method of the builder. This UID is the unique ID of the user for which the conversation needs to be fetched.
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
fetchPrevious() method on the same object repeatedly allows you to fetch the entire conversation between the logged-in user and the specified user. This can be implemented with upward scrolling to display the entire conversation.
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:For a Particular Group
Using theMessagesRequest class and the filters for the MessagesRequestBuilder class as shown in the below code snippet, you can fetch the entire conversation for any group provided you have joined the group. For this use case, it is mandatory to set the GUID parameter using the setGUID() method of the builder. This GUID is the unique identifier of the Group for which the messages are to be fetched.
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
fetchPrevious() method on the same object repeatedly allows you to fetch the entire conversation for the group. This can be implemented with upward scrolling to display the entire conversation.
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:Search Messages
In other words, as a logged-in user, how do I search a message? In order to do this, you can use thesetSearchKeyword() method. This method accepts a string as input. When set, the SDK will fetch messages which match the searchKeyword.
By default, the searchKey is searched only in message text. However, if you enable
Conversation & Advanced Search, the searchKey will be searched in message text, file name, mentions & mime type of the file.The Conversation & Advanced Search is only available in Advanced & Custom plans. If you’re already on one of these plans, please enable the Conversation & Advanced Search from CometChat Dashboard (Open your app, navigate to Chats -> Settings -> General Configuration).| Feature | Basic Search | Advanced Search |
|---|---|---|
| Text search | ✅ | ✅ |
| File name search | ❌ | ✅ |
| Mentions search | ❌ | ✅ |
| Mime type search | ❌ | ✅ |
For a Particular One-on-one Conversation
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:For a Particular Group
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Message list fetched:", messages) returns:console.log("Message fetching failed with error:", error) returns:Unread Message Count
In other words, as a logged-in user, how do I find out the number of unread messages that I have?For a Particular One-on-one Conversation
How do I find out the number of unread messages I have from a particular user? In order to get the unread message count for a particular user, you can use thegetUnreadMessageCountForUser() method.
This method has the below two variants:
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Unread message count fetched", unreadMessageCountObject) returns:console.log("Error in getting unread message count", error) returns:For a Particular Group Conversation
How do I find out the number of unread messages I have in a single group? In order to get the unread message count for a particular group, you can use thegetUnreadMessageCountForGroup() method.
This method has the below two variants:
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Unread message count fetched", unreadMessageCountObject) returns:console.log("Error in getting unread message count", error) returns:For All One-on-one & Group Conversations
How do I find out the number of unread messages for every one-on-one and group conversation? In order to get all the unread message count combined i.e unread message counts for all the users and groups, you can use thegetUnreadMessageCount() method.
This method has two variants:
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
users- The value for this key holds another object that holds the UID as key and their corresponding unread message count as value.groups- The value for this key holds another object that holds the GUID as key and their corresponding unread message count as value.
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Unread message count fetched", unreadMessageCountObject) returns:console.log("Error in getting unread message count", error) returns:For All One-on-one Conversations
In order to fetch the unread message counts for just the users, you can use thegetUnreadMessageCountForAllUsers() method. This method just like others has two variants:
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Unread message count fetched", unreadMessageCountObject) returns:console.log("Error in getting unread message count", error) returns:For All Group Conversations
In order to fetch the unread message counts for just the groups, you can use thegetUnreadMessageCountForAllGroups() method. This method just like others has two variants:
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
Sample Console Output
Sample Console Output
On Success — On Failure —
console.log("Unread message count fetched", unreadMessageCountObject) returns:console.log("Error in getting unread message count", error) returns:Best Practices
Best Practices
- Always remove message listeners when a component unmounts to prevent memory leaks
- Use unique, descriptive listener IDs (e.g.,
"chat-screen-listener") to avoid conflicts - Use
getLastDeliveredMessageId()to efficiently fetch only missed messages - Implement pagination with
fetchPrevious()for message history to avoid loading too many messages at once - Use
setUnread(true)to fetch only unread messages when building notification badges
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
- Not receiving messages: Ensure the message listener is registered and the user is logged in
- Duplicate messages: Check that you’re not adding the same listener ID multiple times
- Missing messages after reconnect: Use the missed messages pattern with
getLastDeliveredMessageId()to catch up - Unread count not updating: Ensure you’re calling the unread count methods after marking messages as read