IP Messenger : A handy tool in LAN Messaging

If you work inside a LAN most of the time, then you probably know the need of sending messages to other users in the LAN. I still wonder why windows doesn’t ship with an in built LAN messaging tool. Anyways here is a post about a really useful, lightweight software for communicating inside your network. Of course there are many good LAN chatting clients available, but most of them are paid software and bulky too.

IP Messenger is a feather light application of about 150 KB. You can download it from here. It’s a zip file containing setup and other support files, but the fact that you can straight away use it by double-clicking on the ‘ipmsg.exe’ file without even setting up in most computers(Windows XP and above), makes it even nicer. It automatically detects all the systems that run IP Messenger inside your network. Now all that left is click the user, write a message, click the send button and whoa…..you are done.



Here is what you can do with it.

• Send files and folders to others at an amazingly fast speed, no need to share your folders to let others use your files.


• By selecting more than one user you can multicast your messages/files/directories.


• Seal your messages so that you get an acknowledgement when the recipient opens the message.


• Lock the message so that only the intended person gets the message.


• Set status or absence mode.


• Can view the IP address, login user, machine name of the other users.


• Messages can be logged for future reference or in case you accidentally close your message box.

There are other features to it too.

• It is open source and free. You can download the source from its homepage www.ipmsg.org.


• It is multi-platform. Download available for Windows, MacOS and Unix/Linux.


• You can send messages from command prompt.

ipmsg.exe [port] /MSG [/LOG][/SEAL] <hostname or IPaddr> <message>
ex) C:\> ipmsg.exe /MSG localhost Hello Me.

In case your LAN is partitioned into multiple sub-networks that use multiple default gateways to connect, then IP Messenger will detect only the systems having IP Messenger using one default gateway. There is a trick or hack to make the nodes outside the subnet visible. There is a post on How To do this to make this hack work.