You’re mid-Brawl Ball match, your random teammate just pinged that they’re going for the goal, but you can’t see their follow-up text warning that the enemy Dynamike is waiting by the net. Frustrating, right? I’ve been there too: I once accidentally muted chat while turning off match notifications before a long road trip, and spent three matches wondering why none of my teammates were responding to my calls for backup. A lot of players accidentally mute text chat when adjusting settings, or have it disabled by default for safety, so figuring out how to unmute text chat in Brawl Stars can make a huge difference in your win rate and team coordination. This guide walks you through every step, fixes common issues, and covers safety tips so you don’t have to deal with toxic chat either.
Step-by-Step Process to Unmute Text Chat in Brawl Stars
The process to enable text chat only takes a few taps, and works the same across iOS, Android, and even Chromebook devices running Brawl Stars. First, open Brawl Stars and tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner of the main menu. You’ll see a dropdown of options, from your profile to the in-game shop.
Next, select Settings from the dropdown menu, it’s the icon that looks like a small gear, right above the “Help and Support” button. Once you’re in the settings menu, scroll past the control and audio settings to find the Social and Privacy section, which controls all your interaction preferences with other players.
You’ll see a toggle labeled “Text Chat” in this section. If it’s grayed out, that means chat is currently disabled. Tap the toggle once to turn it blue, which enables text chat across all parts of the game by default. If you only want to enable certain types of chat, you can adjust those settings right below the main toggle, separate options are available for global chat, team match chat, and friend direct messages.
If you previously muted individual friends, that setting won’t change when you enable global text chat. To unmute a specific friend, head to your friends list, tap their profile icon, and select “Unmute Chat” from the menu on their profile page. This is helpful if you muted a friend for spamming memes once, but want to chat with them again during team matches.
Fixing Common Glitches That Block Text Chat Access
Sometimes you’ll toggle the text chat setting on, but still can’t see or send messages. These issues almost always tie back to account permissions or small technical glitches, and are easy to fix with a few quick checks.
The most common issue is age restriction locks. If you set your age below 16 when creating your Supercell ID, text chat is disabled permanently by default in most regions to comply with child privacy laws. If you’re actually over 16, you can update your age in your Supercell ID settings and submit a verification request to unlock chat features. Guest accounts that aren’t linked to a Supercell ID also have chat disabled by default, so linking your account will unlock that feature.
Temporary chat bans are another common culprit. Supercell’s automated system flags common toxic phrases, so even a joke that you think is harmless might get you a short ban if it triggers the filter. First-time bans usually last 24 hours, while repeat violations can lead to bans lasting up to 7 days or permanent chat restrictions. You can appeal a ban through the help menu if you think it was issued incorrectly, but most short bans are faster to just wait out.
Outdated game versions can also cause chat settings to not sync correctly. If you haven’t updated Brawl Stars in more than a month, head to your device’s app store to install the latest patch, which will fix most common bugs related to social features. If you’re still having issues after updating, try these quick fixes:
How to Customize Text Chat Settings for Safety and Convenience
Enabling text chat doesn’t mean you have to deal with endless spam or toxic comments from random players. Brawl Stars has a lot of built-in customization options that let you pick exactly who you can chat with, so you can get the benefits of team coordination without the downside of negative interactions.
Most regular players choose to mute only global chat while keeping team and friend chat turned on. Global chat is the public chat room accessible from the main menu, and it’s often full of spam, account selling scams, and random toxic comments. Muting that alone eliminates 90% of negative interactions, while still letting you get callouts from your teammates during matches and chat with friends between games. A lot of pro players use this exact setup, it’s the perfect middle ground for most people.
You can also mute individual players mid-match if someone is being toxic or spamming messages. Just tap the scoreboard icon in the top left corner during a match, tap the player’s name, and select “Mute Text Chat” to block only their messages for the rest of the match. This is way better than muting all chat entirely, because you can still get callouts from other teammates who are playing seriously.
Make sure to turn on chat filters in the privacy settings too. These filters automatically block slurs, hate speech, common scam messages, and spam, so you won’t see that content even if you have all chat enabled. Supercell updates the filter list regularly based on user reports, so it catches most common toxic phrases before they reach your chat feed. If you’re letting a younger family member play on your account, you can also lock chat settings with a parental control PIN through your Supercell ID, to prevent them from accidentally enabling unfiltered chat.
When You Might Want to Keep Text Chat Muted (And Alternatives)
Unmuting text chat is great for team coordination, but it’s not the right choice for every player. There are plenty of situations where keeping chat muted actually improves your gameplay experience, and you don’t have to feel pressured to turn it on if you don’t want to.
If you’re grinding solo ranked matches to push your trophy count, muting chat can help you stay focused on gameplay instead of getting distracted by toxic teammates who blame you for every small mistake. I personally keep text chat muted 90% of the time when I’m playing solo ranked, because I’ve had too many matches where a teammate started typing insults after I missed a single shot, and that distraction made us lose the rest of the match.
The default ping system in Brawl Stars is actually really robust, and works perfectly for almost all the callouts you need during a match. You can ping enemy locations, request heals, warn of incoming attacks, call for backup, and even ping specific objectives like the Brawl Ball goal or gem mine, all without typing a single word. For most solo players, the ping system is more than enough to coordinate with random teammates, without the downsides of text chat.
If you’re streaming or recording gameplay for social media, muting chat is also a good idea. Random toxic messages can appear in your recording and get you flagged by platform content policies, so muting chat eliminates that risk entirely. If you want to coordinate with a pre-made team of friends, you can use third-party voice chat apps like Discord instead, which are faster and more reliable than typing in in-game text chat during fast-paced matches.
At the end of the day, whether you want to use text chat or not is totally up to your personal preference. If you’re looking to coordinate better with random teammates or chat with friends while waiting for matches, knowing how to unmute text chat in Brawl Stars only takes a few taps in your settings menu. Just make sure to adjust your privacy and filter settings first, so you can enjoy the social parts of the game without dealing with unnecessary toxicity. If you run into issues that aren’t covered here, you can reach out to Supercell support through the help menu in your settings for account-specific help.