As great of a communication tool Slack has proven to be for teams, one feature has been surprisingly absent until now – the ability to add more people to direct message conversations.

The company announced group messaging as its latest feature addition this week. You can now add up to 8 people to a group DM.

“With this new feature, you can break into a private discussion with up to 8 other people (9 total, including you) whenever you see fit,” Slack explains in a blog post. “The conversation will persist in your list of Direct Messages and you can return to that group at any time, or hide it when you’re done talking. Messages will show up in your searches and you can find group conversations in the Quick Switcher when you search for names (bonus: a new DM-only Quick Switcher view is available with the cmd-shift-k on mac, ctrl-shift-k on win/linux keystroke).”

“With the introduction of group DMs, which will cover many of the use cases that previously required private groups, we’ve transformed private groups into the brand new ‘private channels,'” it adds. “Private channels will be shown mixed in with your existing open channels alphabetically, with small lock icons next to the private ones. When the time comes to create a new channel, you’ll find a new public/private toggle on the configuration screen.”

To use group messages on your mobile device, you’ll have to update your iOS app to version 2.50. The feature was actually quietly added to the last version of the Android app, so there’s no update necessary with that one.

Images via Slack