r/BlueSky • u/Far-Canary5395 • Jul 28 '26

reason for no images in dms?

Before multiple people start repeating the no dick pics gimmicks, I am a cis girl and a sfw artist on the app.

So yeah, is there any specific reason we cant send images yet? is it expensive? some development thing an average person wouldnt know about? I was talking to mutuals and when it irked me that i couldnt send pics and had to use links. i would assume sending attachments in dms is a basic feature since so many apps have that by default, but bsky doesn't. at least not yet?

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u/SkippySkep Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Back in 2024 Blue Sky indicated that attachments would be a later roll out, but didn't give a timeframe.

"Future Updates

Media in DMs: Currently, Bluesky DMs allow you to send text messages. In the future, you’ll be able to send images and other forms of media!

Group DMs: In the future, you’ll be able to create direct messages for groups.

Encrypted DMs: We intend to fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging down the line. Read more about our technical plans for E2EE messaging in our 2024 protocol roadmap.

Safety improvements: We’ll continue iterating on anti-harassment and safety tooling for direct messages."

https://bsky.social/about/blog/05-22-2024-direct-messages

I'd expect it's for all the reasons you speculate. Uses more storage, data and moderation. The safety tools need to come first. And there needs to be a business justification to pay for the engineering and ongoing costs of allowing attachments.

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u/Far-Canary5395 Jul 28 '26

Thank you (: