Send and Receive Text Messages

Product deprecation notice

Effective April 30th, 2026, Vonage In-App Messaging will no longer be available. Access for new users will be closed, and the service will be discontinued for all existing users.

If you have any questions regarding this product’s discontinuation, please contact your account manager or our support team.

Overview

This guide covers sending and receiving messages within a conversation.

Before you begin, make sure you added the SDK to your app and you are able to create a conversation.

NOTE: A step-by-step tutorial to build a chat application is available here.

This guide will make use of the following concepts:

Conversation Events - message events that fire on a Conversation, after you are a Member

Send a Text Message

Given a conversation you are already a member of:

conversation.sendMessage({
    "message_type": "text",
    "text": "Hi Vonage!"
}).then((event) => {
    console.log("message was sent", event);
}).catch((error)=>{
    console.error("error sending the message ", error);
});

val messageText = "TEXT TO SEND"
val massage = NexmoMessage.fromText(messageText)

conversation.sendMessage(message, object : NexmoRequestListener<Void> {
    override fun onSuccess(p0: Void?) {
        Log.d("TAG", "Message has been sent")
    }

    override fun onError(apiError: NexmoApiError) {
        Log.d("TAG", "Error: Message not sent ${apiError.message}")
    }
})

String messageText = "TEXT TO SEND";
NexmoMessage massage = NexmoMessage.fromText(messageText);

conversation.sendMessage(message, new NexmoRequestListener<Void>() {
    public void onSuccess(@Nullable Void p0) {
        Log.d("TAG", "Message sent");
    }

    public void onError(@NotNull NexmoApiError apiError) {
        Log.d("TAG", "Error: Message not sent " + apiError.getMessage());
    }
});

let message = NXMMessage(text: "")
conversation.sendMessage(message, completionHandler: { [weak self] (error) in
   ...
})

NXMessage *message = [[NXMMessage alloc] initWithText:@""];
[conversation sendMessage:message completionHandler:^(NSError * _Nullable error) {
    ...
}];

Receive a Text Message

A message conversation event will be received when a member sends a text message to a conversation:

conversation.on('message', (sender, event) => {
    console.log('*** Message received', sender, event) 
});

private val messageListener = object : NexmoMessageEventListener {
    override fun onTypingEvent(typingEvent: NexmoTypingEvent) {}

    override fun onAttachmentEvent(attachmentEvent: NexmoAttachmentEvent) {}

	override fun onMessageEvent(messageEvent: NexmoMessageEvent) {
    	val userName = messageEvent.embeddedInfo.user.name
    	val text = messageEvent.message.text

		Log.d("TAG", "Message received. User $userName : $text")
	}

    override fun onSeenReceipt(seenEvent: NexmoSeenEvent) {}

    override fun onEventDeleted(deletedEvent: NexmoDeletedEvent) {}

    override fun onDeliveredReceipt(deliveredEvent: NexmoDeliveredEvent) {}
}

conversation?.addMessageEventListener(messageListener)

NexmoMessageEventListener messageListener = new NexmoMessageEventListener() {

	@Override
    public void onMessageEvent(@NonNull NexmoMessageEvent messageEvent) {
		String userName = messageEvent.getEmbeddedInfo().getUser().getName();
		String text = messageEvent.getMessage().getText();

		Log.d("TAG", "Message received. User " + userName + " : " + text);
    }

    @Override
    public void onAttachmentEvent(@NonNull NexmoAttachmentEvent attachmentEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onEventDeleted(@NonNull NexmoDeletedEvent deletedEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onSeenReceipt(@NonNull NexmoSeenEvent seenEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onDeliveredReceipt(@NonNull NexmoDeliveredEvent deliveredEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onTypingEvent(@NonNull NexmoTypingEvent typingEvent) {}
};

conversation.addMessageEventListener(messageListener);

Add NXMConversationDelegate as an extension to a ViewController or similar, and implement conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive event: NXMMessageEvent):

Note: The first method below is required when implementing NXMConversationDelegate:

extension ViewController: NXMConversationDelegate {
    func conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive error: Error) {
        NSLog("Conversation error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
    }
    func conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive event: NXMMessageEvent) {
        NSLog("Received message event: \(event.text ?? "")")
    }
}

Have a ViewController, or similar, conform to NXMConversationDelegate and implement conversation:didReceiveMessageEvent::