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Access & privacy

Control who can join a silo and whether it shows up when people search — the settings that decide how private a silo really is.

Security note: Encryption protects what's said in a silo; access settings decide who is in it. Widening access lets more people read everything posted from the moment they join. Choose the narrowest option that still lets the right people in.

What the settings control

Every silo has two separate privacy questions, and you set them independently:

  • Who can join — whether people need an invite, can join because they're in a linked workspace, or can join with a share link.
  • Whether the silo is discoverable — whether the silo is published to your organisation's silo directory, where anyone can find it by browsing or searching.

A silo can be discoverable but still invite-only, or open to link-joiners but hidden from the directory. Set both to match how sensitive the silo is.

Access options

  • Private (invite only) — people can only join if an admin or member invites them. Best for confidential silos; nobody gets in by accident.
  • Workspace members — anyone who belongs to a chosen workspace can join without a separate invite. Useful for a team silo inside a wider team workspace.
  • Anyone with a link — anyone who has a Letro share link can join themselves. Convenient, but the link is the key: whoever it reaches can get in and read the silo going forward. Only use this for silos you'd be comfortable with a wider audience seeing.

On Web & Desktop

  1. Open the silo and click the silo name in the header to open silo info.
  2. Click Settings, then open the Security & Privacy tab.
  3. Under Access, choose Private (invite only), Workspace members, or Anyone with a link.
  4. If you pick Workspace members, select which workspace grants access.
  5. To control discoverability, turn Publish this silo to the silo directory on or off.
  6. Your changes save as you make them. Close the panel when you're done.

On iOS

  1. Open the silo and tap the silo name at the top to open silo info.
  2. Tap Settings, then Security & Privacy.
  3. Under Access, choose Private (invite only), Workspace members, or Anyone with a link.
  4. If you pick Workspace members, choose the workspace that grants access.
  5. Toggle Publish this silo to the silo directory on or off to control whether people can find it.
  6. Tap Back to return to the conversation.

On Android

  1. Open the silo and tap the silo name at the top to open silo info.
  2. Tap Settings, then Security & Privacy.
  3. Under Access, choose Private (invite only), Workspace members, or Anyone with a link.
  4. If you pick Workspace members, choose the workspace that grants access.
  5. Toggle Publish this silo to the silo directory on or off to control whether people can find it.
  6. Tap Back to return to the conversation.

Good to know

  • Discoverable and joinable are not the same. Publishing a silo to the directory lets people find it, but they still can't join a private silo without an invite. Pair the two settings deliberately.
  • Changing access doesn't reach back in time. New members see messages from when they join onward, governed by the silo's history setting — it does not hand them the entire past conversation unless history visibility allows it.
  • Only admins can change these settings. The Security & Privacy tab is limited by role; members without admin rights can view the silo but not reset its access.
  • Broadening is easy to do and hard to undo. Switching a silo to "Anyone with a link" or publishing it to the directory can expose it quickly. Anyone who joined while it was open stays a member even after you tighten the setting again — remove them separately if needed.
  • Direct messages don't use these options. A one-to-one chat is private to the two people in it and never appears in the directory.

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