Major Update March 2026 5 min read

BurnChat v2.7 — Voice, Commands, and Room Control 🔥

This is the biggest update since BurnChat launched. Voice messages that vanish when the room burns. Over 39 slash commands. A full admin system. Private whispers. Timed mutes. Nickname changes. And a polished new chat experience. Everything still ephemeral. Everything still zero-log.

Voice Messages 🎤

Hit the microphone button, talk, and send. Your voice message appears as a playable waveform widget in the chat. No duration limit. Record for 5 seconds or 5 minutes — it's up to you.

Voice messages follow BurnChat's core promise: they pass through the server without being stored — the only copy lives in your browser. When the room burns, every voice message is destroyed instantly. No audio files are ever written to disk. The data flows through WebSocket as base64, lives in RAM, and vanishes without a trace.

We also added listen-once tracking. After someone plays your voice message, their avatar appears below it — so you know exactly who heard it. Once played, the message locks and can't be replayed. Ephemeral audio for ephemeral conversations.

39+ Slash Commands ⌨️

Type / in the chat input and a categorized command menu appears instantly. Arrow keys or click to select. Every command is designed to work without accounts, without persistence, without leaving the chat.

Chat Commands

CommandWhat it does
/msg nick messageSend a private whisper — only you and them see it
/msgvoice nickRecord and send a private voice message
/voiceStart recording a voice message
/endvoiceStop recording and send
/nick newnicknameChange your nickname mid-conversation
/away messageSet an away status — auto-replies to PMs
/backRemove your away status

Room Commands

CommandWhat it does
/onlineShow everyone currently in the room
/topic textSet a room title visible in the header
/lock passwordPassword-protect the room
/join roomnameOpen another room in a new tab
/cleanClear your local chat history
/leave messageLeave with an optional farewell message
/burnDestroy the room and everything in it

Admin Commands

CommandWhat it does
/admin nickPromote a user to room admin
/removeadmin nickDemote an admin to regular user
/adminpw passwordSet or authenticate with admin password
/kick nick reasonKick a user — they can rejoin
/ban nickBan a user permanently from the room
/unban nickRemove a ban
/mute nick minsMute a user — optionally timed
/unmute nickUnmute a user

Fun Commands

CommandWhat it does
/play snakeJump straight into multiplayer Snake
/endEnd the current game
/helpShow all available commands

Room Admin System 🛡️

Rooms now have an optional admin system. Here's how it works: when no admin exists, everyone can do everything. The moment someone runs /admin nickname, that person becomes admin — and from that point on, only admins can lock the room, ban users, mute people, set topics, or burn the room.

Admins can promote others, and the /adminpw command lets you set a room admin password. If the admin disconnects and rejoins, they just type /adminpw with the same password to get admin back. The password lives in RAM — it burns with the room.

This gives BurnChat rooms the moderation tools they need without requiring accounts, databases, or any form of identity. Your authority comes from a password, not a profile.

Private Messages & Away Status 💬

/msg nick your message sends a whisper that only you and the recipient can see. Private messages appear with an orange border and a "whisper" label so they're visually distinct from the public chat.

If someone PMs a user who's set themselves away with /away brb getting coffee, they'll automatically receive the away message as a private reply. When the away user sends any regular message, their away status clears automatically.

What Changed in the UI ✨

🎤
Mic button
New microphone button in the input bar for instant voice recording
⌨️
Command menu
Type / to see all commands with categories and descriptions
📌
Room topic
Topics display in the header on desktop, below it on mobile
🛡️
Admin badge
Admins get a gold nickname badge and red text in chat
⏱️
Timed mutes
/mute nick 5 silences someone for 5 minutes, auto-unmutes
🏷️
Clear labels
Header now shows "ROOM" and "YOU" labels so nothing is confusing

Still zero-log. Still ephemeral. Still BurnChat.

Every feature in this update follows the same rule: nothing hits disk. Voice messages, private whispers, admin passwords, room topics, ban lists, mute timers — admins choose the storage mode — server buffer keeps the last 100 messages in RAM for late joiners, or client-only mode stores nothing on the server at all. With E2E encryption enabled, even the server can't read messages. When the room burns, everything is gone.

There's nothing to subpoena. Nothing to breach. Nothing to leak. The room existed, and then it didn't. That's still the entire point.

We're not done. There are more features coming — some of them pretty wild. Stay tuned.

🔥

Try the new BurnChat

Create a room. Type /help. Send a voice message. Burn it all.

Open BurnChat