Bluesky is adding group chats as part of a broader effort to make the platform more community-focused, giving users a new way to interact privately beyond public posts and replies.
The social network launched support for group chats on Thursday, describing the move as another feature meant to make Bluesky more competitive with X.
Bluesky rolled out group chats in its latest mobile update, highlighting invite controls and encrypted conversations for more focused community interaction.
The launch signals a strategic shift for Bluesky, which is trying to strengthen user engagement by supporting smaller communities rather than relying only on public posting to reach wide audiences.
Group chats arrive with a 50-person limit
The new group chat feature is included in Bluesky’s latest app version, v1.124.
According to TechCrunch, Bluesky group chats currently support up to 50 people, based on the company’s announcement.
Mezha also reported that the feature appears in version v1.124 and allows users to create group chats with up to 50 participants.
That limit is much smaller than X’s group chat capacity. X supports up to 1,000 members in chats, though Bluesky said it may increase its own limit in the future.
For now, the smaller limit may fit Bluesky’s community-first direction, where the goal appears to be more focused conversations instead of large broadcast-style spaces.
Invite controls and privacy options added
Bluesky is also giving users more control over who can bring them into group conversations.
Group chat creators can manage chats, decide who can participate, and generate invite links that can be shared across the web, including inside Bluesky posts as embedded cards.
Users will be able to decide who can join chats and create invitation links that can be shared online.
Participants can also control who is allowed to invite them to chats. Users can choose between everyone, only people they follow, or no one, with “only people you follow” set as the default unless users choose a different option for direct messages.
However, media sharing in group chats is not yet supported. Bluesky explained that media sharing would require additional safety and moderation systems.
Community features become the next focus
The group chat launch comes as Bluesky prepares more tools for community-based interaction.
Bluesky head of product Alex Benzer, said the app will become more community-focused in the coming days.
Benzer wrote that Bluesky is currently “one big space,” but communities will become “smaller spaces” where users can go deeper and spend time with people who care about the same topics. Benzer also said users will be able to create communities, join them, post in them, and get updates.
Benzer’s explanation that communities will allow users to dive into smaller spaces and connect with people who share similar interests.
Slower growth pushes Bluesky toward deeper engagement
Bluesky’s community push comes as its growth has slowed compared with larger rivals.
Bluesky now has about 44.8 million registered users, while X has around 600 million monthly active users.
That gap may explain why Bluesky is focusing less on matching X at scale and more on building different types of social connection. If Bluesky cannot immediately compete with X or Meta’s Threads in total user numbers, community tools may help the platform become more useful for smaller, interest-based groups.
The strategy is a way for Bluesky to strengthen its position by expanding interaction capabilities within communities rather than depending only on public posts.
QR profile sharing also rolls out
Alongside group chats, Bluesky is also adding a new way to share profiles.
The updated app includes personalized QR codes for sharing profiles, similar to features already seen in other social apps.
The updated Bluesky version presents a new way to share profiles through a personalized QR code, making it easier to meet users and join communities.
The updates show Bluesky moving toward a more social and community-driven experience. Group chats may not immediately close the gap with X or Threads, but they give Bluesky another tool to keep users engaged in smaller spaces where public virality is not the only measure of success.
