Sending files and images in a chat

You can send images in a Silky Road conversation — photos, screenshots, mockups. Up to 8MB each, and up to 5 per message.

Images only. You cannot send a PDF, a spreadsheet, a zip file, or any other kind of document.

Sending an image

1. Open the conversation and attach an image to your message.
2. The image uploads first, on its own.
3. The message then sends carrying the image.

If the upload succeeds but the message does not send, nobody sees the image — just send it again.

Limits at a glance

Maximum size	8MB per image, measured before processing
Maximum per message	5 images
Accepted	Images only
Not accepted	PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, archives, any non-image file

What happens to your image

Every image you send is rebuilt from scratch on the way through. It is rotated the right way up using the photo's own orientation data, shrunk to fit within 2000×2000 pixels if it is larger, and re-encoded.

That has some effects worth knowing about:

• The file the other person receives is not byte-for-byte the file you sent. This is deliberate — rebuilding an image from its pixels discards anything hidden inside the original file.
• Image metadata is stripped, including any GPS location recorded by your camera. This is a privacy benefit most people do not expect, and it means a photo will not quietly reveal where you took it.
• Transparency and animation may not survive as you expect.
• Very large images are shrunk, not rejected. Fine detail in a full-screen screenshot can become hard to read, so crop to the part that matters rather than sending the whole screen.

Images in chat are not private

Treat an image you send in chat as shared rather than confidential. Attachment links are not secret, and anyone who has the link can open it.

Do not send anything sensitive this way — identity documents, bank statements, passwords, or anything you would not want seen beyond the conversation. If you are asked to verify your identity, use the proper verification process, which handles documents differently.

If you need to share a document

There is no document sharing in chat today. If you and the other party need to exchange a contract or a statement, that is not something chat can currently do.

Be careful here: moving to email to swap documents is exactly the kind of step that can also be used by scammers to pull a deal off the platform, and it means the conversation is no longer covered by anything Silky Road can see or help with. If someone pushes you off-platform, see Reporting a message or user.

Common problems

What you see	What it means
Only image files are allowed	The file is not an image. There is no workaround in chat
An upload size error	The image is over 8MB. Compress it, or take a screenshot instead of sending the original
The image looks blurry	It was larger than 2000×2000 and was shrunk. Crop and resend
Upload failed with no clear reason	Often a file that claims to be an image but is not. Re-save it as a real JPG or PNG
Conversation not found	You are not a participant in that thread, or are on the wrong account