Family Chat is the everyday side of Haklo — the place your family talks between gatherings. It's one private thread, just your family, in the Chat tab.
Chat has two halves, and the split is the point. The Thread is where conversation happens and scrolls away, like conversation should. The Record is where the things worth keeping go — dates, decisions, the wifi password, the name of the good plumber. Swipe between them; they're two segments of the same screen.
Family Chat is free, for every family. The one Plus piece is the AI librarian, covered below.
The Thread
Who can see it?
Your family. That's the whole list. There are no channels, no group management, no outside members.
Do people get notified when I send a message?
Yes — a quiet one. Family members get a push that says "{your name} sent a message" with the family name as the title. The message itself is never shown in the notification, so nothing you write appears on anyone's lock screen. Anyone who has turned push notifications off simply sees the unread badge on the Chat tab instead.
Can I edit or delete a message?
You can delete your own messages: long-press the message, choose More, then Delete message. There's no editing a sent message today — if you need to fix one, delete and resend. (Voice-note transcripts are the exception; see below.)
Sending photos
Tap the attach button in the composer to take a photo or choose one from your library — one photo per message, with an optional caption. Haklo resizes photos before upload and strips the location data your camera embeds in them, so a photo shared in chat never quietly carries your GPS coordinates.
Anyone in the family can tap a photo to view it full-screen and save it to their device. If you shared a photo you regret, long-press it and choose Remove photo — the message stays, marked "Photo removed."
Voice notes
Tap the mic button to start recording, tap again to stop — up to 60 seconds. It's tap-to-start, tap-to-stop on purpose (no holding a button down), so it works for the youngest and oldest hands in the family.
Every voice note gets an automatic transcript a few moments after it sends, so nobody has to choose between listening and skimming. The person who recorded it can fix the transcript if the transcription got a word wrong, or retract the transcript entirely. Recording, playback, and transcripts are all free.
Emoji reactions
Long-press any message and pick from six reactions: ❤️ 👍 😂 😮 😢 🙏. Tap the same one again to take it back. Reactions don't send notifications — they're for the person scrolling, not a way to ping anyone.
If someone's messages aren't good for you
Every family has seasons. Two tools, both quiet:
- Hide their messages — long-press one of their messages → More → Hide their messages. You stop seeing what they write in chat. They are not told, and nothing changes for anyone else in the family. Undo it anytime in Settings → Hidden in chat. Hiding someone also stops their messages from sending you push notifications.
- Report — long-press → More → Report message (or report the person). Only the Haklo team sees a report — never your family — and we look within a day.
The Record
The Record is your family's durable memory: the school pickup change, the decision about summer, the dentist's number, the wifi password. Unlike the thread, entries don't scroll away — they're organized by category and stay until someone who filed them removes them.
Filing something
Two ways:
- From the thread: long-press the message worth keeping → More → File to Record. The entry is pre-filled from the message; adjust and save.
- Directly: open the Record segment and tap Add to Record.
Filing by hand is free, always.
Editing and deleting entries
Tap an entry to edit or delete it. Deleting is reserved for the person who filed the entry — anyone can read the Record, but only the filer can remove what they filed.
Exporting the Record
The Record segment has an Export button that produces a plain-text family handbook — every category, every entry — and hands it to your phone's share sheet, so you can send it to Notes, Mail, Files, or print it. Your family's memory is yours to take with you.
The librarian (Haklo Plus)
The librarian is an optional AI helper that reads your family chat and proposes Record entries — the appointment mentioned in passing, the decision made across ten messages, the login someone will ask for again in a month. It has two hard rules: it never posts in the thread, and it never files anything by itself — a person confirms, edits, or dismisses every suggestion.
Turning it on
Settings → Family Chat → AI librarian. Only a parent or guardian can turn it on, it's off by default, and turning it on walks through a plain-language consent screen first — what the librarian does and what you should know, before anything starts. Turn it off anytime; same switch.
How suggestions work
From the Record segment, tap Review chat and the librarian looks through recent messages for things worth keeping. Suggestions appear as cards — each one shows the proposed entry, which chat messages it came from, and three choices: Confirm, Edit, or Dismiss. Nothing enters the Record without one of you saying so.
What it will and won't file
The librarian files ordinary family logistics: dates and appointments, decisions, contacts and places, plans, preferences — plus a narrow set of low-stakes shared logins under a "Wifi & logins" category (the wifi password, the streaming login, a library card number).
It deliberately refuses to file anything genuinely sensitive, even if you ask: financial details (card numbers, bank accounts, SSNs), passwords to sensitive accounts (banking, email, Apple/Google IDs), door and alarm codes, one-time verification codes, medical information, custody matters, and a child's location. Those refusals are enforced by a filter that runs both before and after the AI — not left to the model's judgment.
Asking the Record
With the librarian on, the Record's search box becomes an ask box: type a question in plain language — "what was the gate code discussion?", "when is the orthodontist?" — and get an answer drawn from what your family has filed. Asking the Record is part of Plus; plain browsing and search of your entries is free.
Privacy notes
- The thread is your family's. Chat messages are not used to train AI models — see the privacy page for the full position.
- The librarian reads chat only while a parent has it switched on, and only to propose entries you approve.
- Push notifications never include message content.
- Photos are stripped of embedded location data before they're shared.
Missing something or got a question this page didn't answer? Let us know — we update this page from real questions.