> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.z-api.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Understand how chats work in Z-API and the available methods

## Overview

As mentioned in the previous topic, for WhatsApp everything is a chat. In this topic you will find all methods to fetch information and manage your chats.

A WhatsApp chat can be:

* **Individual conversation** — chat with a specific contact, identified by their phone number;
* **Group** — chat with multiple participants, identified by a unique ID;
* **Broadcast list** — sending to multiple contacts at the same time, identified by an ID with "broadcast" prefix.

***

## What can you do with chats?

Through Z-API, you have access to several methods for managing your chats:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="List chats">
    Get all open chats with information like last message, timestamp, and contact/group data.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Chat metadata">
    Fetch detailed information from a specific chat.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Mark as read">
    Mark an entire chat as read, similar to what you do manually on WhatsApp.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Archive and pin">
    Organize your chats by archiving or pinning important conversations.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Mute chat">
    Silence notifications for a specific chat.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Clear and delete">
    Clear message history or delete a chat completely.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

***

## Chat identifiers

It's important to understand how WhatsApp identifies each type of chat:

| Type    | ID Format    | Example                                                  |
| ------- | ------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Contact | Phone number | `5511999999999` or `99999999999@lid`                     |
| Group   | Group Id     | `120363019502650977-group` or `123456789101-12345678910` |

<Tip>
  All these IDs are returned by the **get-chats** method. We recommend storing these identifiers in your application to facilitate chat management.
</Tip>