YouTube tests direct messaging. Here's how it works.

Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Elon Musk's X – all these sites allow users to privately chat with other users right inside the platform.

Almost every major social media platform has a direct message feature. Well, almost every major social media platform except for YouTube.

That looks like it may soon change though.

According to a post from a YouTube employee on a Google support thread, YouTube is currently testing a new way to "share videos" through direct messages on the platform through the mobile app.

YouTube says in the post that this has been a "top feature request."

"We're experimenting with a new feature that makes it easy for you to share videos you love (long-form, Shorts and live streams) and have conversations about them directly on the YouTube mobile app," reads the YouTube post. "By messaging on YouTube, you accept that messages may be reviewed to ensure they follow our Community Guidelines. Community Guidelines apply to all content on YouTube, including on-platform video shares and messages."

As mentioned in its statement, YouTube will uphold its moderation policies for content sent via direct message as it would with public content, and will review flagged material. 

How YouTube direct messaging will work

YouTube says that the direct messaging experiment is just rolling out to users over the age of 18 in Poland and Ireland right now. However, this is a typical testing phase for the company's experiments and it will likely roll out even further to more users in the future.

A YouTube help page first discovered by 9to5Google further explains how this new direct messaging feature will work. 

Users will be able to share videos with other users on the platform using the feature in the YouTube mobile app. Once shared, the contacted user will be able to accept the chat invite or decline it. Every user will be given the option to accept or decline a chat when a new channel contacts them. 

When accepted, users will receive the shared video and be able to privately chat and share more videos with each other. Users will also be able to block channels that they don't want to receive invite requests or chats from. Message notifications will appear alongside other notifications when a user taps the Notification bell icon.

Longtime YouTube users have actually experienced direct messaging on the platform before. The company rolled out a way to privately share and discuss videos with specific users back in 2017. But YouTube suddenly removed the private messaging feature, much to the chagrin of many of its users, in 2019.

Now, YouTube seems poised to finally bring back direct messaging in the app.