Zulip homepage

Help center home

Guides

Getting started

Setting up your organization

Account basics

Display settings

Writing messages

Sending messages

Reading messages

People

Streams & topics

Notifications

Apps

Zulip administration

Organization basics

Users

Stream management

Organization settings

Bots & integrations

Support

Back to Zulip

Starting a new topic

When to start a new topic

To get the full benefits of Zulip's topic model, when starting a new conversation, you should start a new topic!

Starting a topic is like a lighter weight version of giving your email a subject. Topic names should be brief but specific, e.g.:

  • Good topic names: "question about topics", "welcome Anna Smith!", "issue #1234"
  • Not so good topic names: "question", "hi", "help", "this topic is about a question I have about topics"

Don't overthink naming your topic. The first 2-3 words that come to mind are probably fine!

How to start a new topic

  • From a stream view
  • From other views

  1. Click the New topic button at the bottom of the app, or use the C keyboard shortcut.

  2. Enter a topic name. Auto-complete will provide suggestions for previously used topics.

  3. Click on the compose box, or press Tab to compose your message. You can preview your message before sending.

  4. Click Send, or use a keyboard shortcut to send your message.

You can change the destination stream for your message using the dropdown in the top left of the compose box.

  1. Click the New topic button at the bottom of the app, or use the C keyboard shortcut.

  2. Select a stream from the dropdown in the top left of the compose box. You can start typing to filter streams.

  3. Enter a topic name. Auto-complete will provide suggestions for previously used topics.

  4. Click on the compose box, or press Tab to compose your message. You can preview your message before sending.

  5. Click Send, or use a keyboard shortcut to send your message.

In Zulip, you can compose a message to a different place than the one you are viewing. In this situation, the message feed will fade to indicate what's going on.

Don't see an answer to your question? Contact this Zulip server's administrators for support.