Voice calls and SecureCall

The messenger ships with one-tap voice calls between the two people in a chat. There are two modes:

• Voice call — a regular call. Nothing is recorded. When the call ends, the audio is gone.
• SecureCall — a recorded call. Both sides explicitly consent before it starts, and a recording lands in the chat's Calls tab a few minutes later. Both parties get the same recording; neither side can edit it or delete it.

Calls are 1-on-1 only in v1 — there are no group calls yet. Either side of a direct-message chat can start one. Group rooms do not have a call button.

Starting a call

Open a direct-message chat. In the chat header, next to the info-panel toggle, there's a phone icon. Click it; a small menu opens with the two options:

• Voice call — starts a regular call straight away.
• Secure call (recorded) — first shows a consent dialog with the disclosure copy. If you confirm, the call rings the other side; if they accept, the recording begins.

The callee sees the matching language on the incoming popup: a normal Incoming call for a voice call, and Incoming secure call with the same recording-disclosure line for SecureCall. Accepting an incoming SecureCall is the callee's consent.

If you don't have a phone icon in the header, the chat is a group room or another chat type where calls aren't applicable.

During a call

A centred call popup overlays the page so the call follows you around — switching chats, scrolling the listings page, opening the dashboard, all fine.

It shows:

• The other party's avatar and name (resolved from their business profile if they have one, otherwise their account).
• The status: Calling…, Connecting…, In call, or for SecureCall Recording.
• An mm:ss timer once the call is active.
• A mute / unmute button — toggles your microphone locally; you'll hear the other person regardless.
• A hang up button — ends the call for both sides.

For SecureCall, a small Recording badge with a red dot stays visible above the controls for the whole call. There is no way to start recording in the middle of a Voice call — the choice is made at start, full stop.

What SecureCall guarantees

The point of SecureCall is to have an honest, shared record of what was actually said. Concretely:

• Both parties get the same recording. It's stored centrally and mirrored to both sides. Nobody has the "master copy"; you have equally privileged access.
• It cannot be edited. There is no trim, splice, or re-encode operation in the UI. The file you both see is the file that was captured.
• Neither party can delete it. There is no delete button on a recording entry on either side. If you regret a SecureCall, you regret it on the record.
• The other side knows it was recorded. SecureCall requires explicit consent on both sides — there's no silent recording.

The same applies if one of you closes the tab or even signs out of Haubot — the recording is finalised by the server, not by your browser. As long as the call connects and runs, a recording is produced.

The only exceptions are at the platform level: if a recording fails to upload (rare; surfaced as Failed in the Calls tab), or if Haubot is legally compelled to remove a file. See Messenger privacy and security for the exact policy.

Finding a recording after the call

Open the info panel on the right side of the chat (the (i) icon in the header — on wide screens it's already open). The fourth tab is Calls. It lists every SecureCall held in this conversation, newest first, with:

• Date and time the call ended.
• Duration.
• Recording size and format (typically Opus-in-WebM or MP4-audio).
• Status — Processing, Available, or Failed.
• A play button to stream it inline, and a download button to save the file.

There is a delay between the call ending and the recording appearing — usually a couple of minutes, sometimes longer if the file is large. During that window the status reads Processing. Once it flips to Available, the play and download buttons activate. Voice calls (the non-recorded mode) never appear in this tab.

Click play and a signed, short-lived URL is generated server-side and streamed back to your browser. The URL is not pasteable — if you copy it and try to share it with a third party, it'll be expired or scoped to your session by the time they try. To share a recording outside Haubot, use download and share the file itself.

When you'd use which

A few real situations:

• A buyer wants to talk through a spec — Voice call. No record needed, faster.
• You're negotiating a price — SecureCall if you want a record of what was agreed. Both sides see the same file later.
• You agreed something earlier on chat and now want to confirm verbally — SecureCall; one minute on a recording often saves a multi-page paper trail.
• You're discussing something genuinely confidential under NDA — neither, in v1. The recording is stored on Haubot's servers, not end-to-end encrypted. Use a separate channel for that one conversation, the same advice as for text. See Messenger privacy and security.

Browser and permission requirements

• The first time you start or accept a call, your browser asks for microphone access. If you decline, the call fails with a microphone or connection unavailable error. Re-grant the permission from your browser's site-settings menu and try again.
• Calls work in current Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. They do not work on browsers that block WebRTC (some hardened privacy browsers).
• A stable network connection helps. The codec adapts to bandwidth, but if you drop below a few tens of kbps the audio gets choppy.
• If something is wrong on the other side (no mic permission, no WebRTC), you'll see Connecting… indefinitely or a media error — try a different browser or call back from the Voice call mode to confirm the link works at all.

What isn't in v1

• Group calls — not yet. Calls are 1-on-1.
• Video calls — not yet; voice only.
• Calling someone outside Haubot — no. Both ends are Haubot accounts.
• Editing or trimming a recording — by design, no. The whole point is that the recording is immutable.
• Deleting a recording from your side — no. See What SecureCall guarantees above.
• A recording started / recording stopped mid-call indicator — not needed, because recording is decided at call start and runs for the whole call. The Recording badge on the popup is the visible cue throughout.

If something here doesn't match what you're seeing, let support know — calls are a feature we're actively expanding.

Where to next

• About to start your first call? Go to /messages, pick a 1-on-1 chat, click the phone icon.
• Worried about consent and storage details? Messenger privacy and security.
• Looking for the recording from yesterday? Finding info in a chat covers the info-panel layout.