# Typing Indicators

If you use Stream's UI components, typing indicators are automatically handled.
The typing indicators can be turned on or off in the channel type settings.
This example below shows how to integrate typing indicators into your own message input UI.

## Sending Typing Events

When a user starts typing call the keystroke method. Optionally you can specify a thread id to have a thread specific typing indicator.
A few seconds after a user stops typing use stopTyping.

```js label="JavaScript"
// The JS client keeps track of the typing state for you.
// Just call `channel.keystroke()` when the user types and
// `channel.stopTyping()` when the user sends the message (or aborts)

// sends a typing.start event at most once every two seconds
await channel.keystroke();

// sends a typing.start event for a particular thread
await channel.keystroke(thread_id);

// sends the typing.stop event
await channel.stopTyping();
```

### Receiving typing indicator events

Listening to typing indicators uses the event system, an example is shown below

```js label="JavaScript"
// channels keep track of the users that are currently typing.
// `channel.state.typing` is an immutable object which gets regenerated
// every time a new user is added or removed to this list
console.log(channel.state.typing);

// start typing event handling
channel.on("typing.start", (event) => {
  if (event.parent_id) {
    console.log(
      `${event.user.name} started typing in thread ${event.parent_id}`,
    );
  } else {
    console.log(`${event.user.name} started typing`);
  }
});

// stop typing event handling
channel.on("typing.stop", (event) => {
  if (event.parent_id) {
    console.log(
      `${event.user.name} stopped typing in thread ${event.parent_id}`,
    );
  } else {
    console.log(`${event.user.name} stopped typing`);
  }
});
```

<Admonition type="info">

Because clients might fail at sending `typing.stop` event all Chat clients periodically prune the list of typing users.

</Admonition>

### Typing Privacy Settings

Please take into account that `typing.start` and `typing.stop` events delivery can be controlled by user privacy settings:

<Tabs>

```json label="JSON"
// user object with privacy settings where typing indicators are disabled
{
  // other user fields
  "privacy_settings": {
    "typing_indicators": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  }
}
```

</Tabs>

If `privacy_settings.typing_indicators.enabled` is set to `false` , then `typing.start` and `typing.stop` events will be ignored for this user by Stream's server and these events will not be sent to other users. In other words other users will not know that the current user was typing.


---

This page was last updated at 2026-08-11T17:19:21.465Z.

For the most recent version of this documentation, visit [https://getstream.io/chat/docs/react-native/typing-indicators/](https://getstream.io/chat/docs/react-native/typing-indicators/).