--- title: searchChatMessages description: Searches for messages with given words in the chat. Returns result in reverse chronological order, i. e. in order of decreasing message_id. Doesn't work in secret chats with non-empty query (searchSecretMessages should be used instead) or without enabled message database --- ## Method: searchChatMessages [Back to methods index](index.md) YOU CANNOT USE THIS METHOD IN MADELINEPROTO Searches for messages with given words in the chat. Returns result in reverse chronological order, i. e. in order of decreasing message_id. Doesn't work in secret chats with non-empty query (searchSecretMessages should be used instead) or without enabled message database ### Parameters: | Name | Type | Required | Description | |----------|---------------|----------|-------------| |chat\_id|[CLICK ME int53](../types/int53.md) | Yes|Chat identifier to search messages in| |query|[CLICK ME string](../types/string.md) | Yes|Query to search for| |sender\_user\_id|[CLICK ME int](../types/int.md) | Yes|If not 0, only messages sent by the specified user will be returned. Doesn't supported in secret chats| |from\_message\_id|[CLICK ME int53](../types/int53.md) | Yes|Identifier of the message from which we need a history, you can use 0 to get results from the beginning| |offset|[CLICK ME int](../types/int.md) | Yes|Specify 0 to get results exactly from from_message_id or negative offset to get specified message and some newer messages| |limit|[CLICK ME int](../types/int.md) | Yes|Maximum number of messages to be returned, should be positive and can't be greater than 100. If offset is negative, limit must be greater than -offset. There may be less than limit messages returned even the end of the history is not reached| |filter|[CLICK ME SearchMessagesFilter](../types/SearchMessagesFilter.md) | Optional|Filter for content of the searched messages| ### Return type: [Messages](../types/Messages.md)