If you’re here, chances are you’re pretty new to the world of CS:GO/CS2, and you want to learn how to communicate with the rest of the players. We all started somewhere, and this is why we created this guide, to show you how to chat in CS:GO easily.
We’ll start by teaching you how to chat to everyone or only your teammates, and then we’ll show you how to chat while running (if you ever need to do it!) and how to enhance your CS:GO chat experience by using commands.
All in all, at the end of this guide, you’ll be a master of CS:GO chat, because you will not only learn how to talk in CS:GO, but how to tailor the entire experience by using commands, just like an experienced player.
Without anything more to add, let’s start!
How to Chat in CS:GO to Everyone
To avoid distracting you from the game, you should first test this on a Practice match with bots. Because if you go AFK on a Matchmaking server, you’re going to get a lot of heat. So, it’s better to learn the ropes at your own pace, so go Practice mode all the way.
Here’s how you can chat in CS:GO and send a message to everyone on the server:
- Open CS:GO
- Start a game or join a match via MM
- Once you’ve already selected your team, click “Y”
- The chat function will become available
- Now, simply type in the message you want to send to all players in the match
- Press “Enter”
- Everyone will receive your message
So any time you want to say something to everyone like “GG WP”, “GL HF”, “pls stop screaming”, or any other message, just click “Y” and type in whatever you want to say.
However, if you want to communicate key information to your teammates such as callouts, tactics, strategies and more, you need to keep it private and hence pressing “Y” won’t cut it. The next section will show you how to only chat with your teammates in CS:GO.
How to Chat in CS:GO to Your Teammates
If you want to chat with your teammates, to communicate private information that will bring your team a key advantage, you need to do the following:
- Launch the game and join a match
- Press “U”
- The team chat will appear
- Type in your message for your teammates
- Press “Enter”
- Your teammates will receive your text
As simple as that. It’s practically the same as sending a message to everyone, but instead, here you’re just clicking “U”. That’s it.
For example, if you’re playing on Train and you want to tell your teammates you’re at the zone between the Bomb Train and the White Train on the B Site, you can click “U” and type in “at summit need help”, press “Enter” and your team will receive the message revealing your location.
No rocket science here – chatting in CS:GO is pretty easy. However, if you want to do it while running so you can keep chatting despite being in the heat of the game, the next section will teach you how.
How to Chat in CS:GO While Running
If for some reason you want to chat in CS:GO while running (a stunt, honestly), here’s how you can do it:
- Press and hold “W” to start moving forward
- Press “Y” or “U” to chat to everyone or only your teammates
- Type in your message
- Press “Enter”
That’s it – this is how you can chat while running in CS:GO, and it also works in CS2. However, this is rather impractical and chances are it will distract you and prevent you from flicking or bursting on time.
Therefore, if you want to send a message while running without exposing yourself, we recommend you to read the next section, because we’re going to show you how to use commands to enhance the chat experience, and it includes setting up predetermined messages you can fire up by clicking a specific key.
Customizing the CS:GO Chat Experience with Commands
Now you know how to chat in CS:GO, and while we could call it a day, we recommend you to stay a bit longer so you can learn how to use commands to customize your chat experience.
However, before we can move on, you need to enable the developer console – here’s how:
- Open CS:GO
- Go to “Settings”
- Click on “Game”
- Navigate to the option to activate the developer console
- Set it to “Yes”
Now you can launch the console any time you click the key “~” (tilde). With this ready, let’s see how you can use specific commands to take your CS:GO chat experience to the next level.
Mute the Enemy Team
All in all, reading messages from the enemy team won’t serve any purpose, especially if you’re determined to give your best performance. Therefore, if you want to mute them all, so you can only read messages of your teammates and chat with them, here’s how:
- Press “~” to open the console
- Input cl_mute_enemy_team 1
- Click “Enter”
- Now all the members of the enemy team will be muted
This is pretty useful if you are playing Casual, Deathmatch and other non-Comp games on non-Prime servers, so you can cut off the clutter from the enemy team and just focus on the game to give your best performance. Easy.
Only Chat with Your Steam Friends
If you are playing on public servers with your friends, but you only want to chat with them in-game regardless if they’re on your team or not, we’re happy to tell you it’s possible by using the following command:
- Press “~” to open the console
- Input cl_mute_all_but_friends_and_party 1
- Click “Enter”
- Now you’ll only be able to read messages from your friends on Steam
This is an extra filter to enhance your chat experience in CS:GO, so you can only receive messages from players you are about, and completely forget about the random toxic and annoying messages from other players, especially if you’re playing without Prime.
Bind Predetermined Messages
If you’re the kind of player who likes to keep communication short and sweet, then you’ll love the idea of binding predetermined messages and firing them up by clicking a key at any time you need to do it, so you can forget about pressing “Y” or “U” and typing in a message.
First, make a list of how many predetermined messages you want to set up, and who you want to receive your messages (everyone or only your team), and then you can bind them like this:
- Press “~” to open console
- Input bind “key” “say [message]” or “say_team [message]”
- Click “Enter”
- Now you can send your predetermined message anytime you want to, just by clicking a key
For example, if you want to tell your teammates “TAKING FIRE BOMB A NEED HELP” by clicking the key “O”, here’s how you’d do it:
- Press “~” to open console
- Input bind “O” “TAKING FIRE BOMB A NEED HELP”
- Click “Enter”
- Now you will send this message to all of your teammates any time you click “O”
Now, if you want to say something to all the players, for example, “i think someone gonna do a 1G today”, using the “P” key, here’s how to do it:
- Press “~” to open console
-
- Input bind “P” “say i think someone gonna do a 1G today”
- Click “Enter”
- Now everyone in the match will get this message any time you click “P”
As you can see, it’s pretty easy to create predetermined messages in CS:GO, making it much easier for you to chat. And if you want to make it even more practical, you can add your own say and say_team binds to your autoexec.cfg or preferred .cfg file, so they can execute automatically and you won’t have to input the binds via console every time you open the game.
However, we recommend you to only create a maximum of 3-4 predetermined messages, because if you create too many binds, soon you won’t have any spare keys for binding additional commands. Take this into account, especially if you want to execute other commands in the game.
Nullify Muted Players from the Chat
Sometimes, muting the opposing team is not enough, as they can still rely on things like their names and avatars. So, if you want to enjoy a distractions-free experience, in addition to not being able to read their messages, you just need to open the console and input the command “cl_sanitize_muted_players 1”, press Enter and now you won’t be able to see the messages, names and avatars of muted players in CS:GO (CS2).
Talk via Voice
If you prefer to talk with the rest of players via voice, you can do so by clicking the key “K”. Just press on it and talk on the microphone, and they all will be able to listen to your messages.
If you’d like to learn more about talking on the microphone on CS:GO, here at CSDB.gg you will find a series of tutorials covering this topic. From sending your first messages via the mic to playing music through it, we have covered it all.
Get Prime!
If you really want to enhance your chat experience in CS:GO and CS2, please, get Prime. This one-time purchase of $14.99 is going to save you from a lot of stress and frustration, because it will allow you to only play with other Prime players, which will reduce your chances of encountering hackers and toxic players.
The thing is, when you play matches via the Matchmaking system without Prime, you’re going to encounter a lot of the following players:
- The ones who play music through their microphone or annoying bits (AKA, The DJ)
- The ones who scream on their mic out of anger or frustration
- The ones who don’t know anything else but to insult other players
- The spammer who repeats the same message all the time
- Hackers
- And more…
So if you want to massively reduce the toxicity of CS:GO, especially in the chat, it’s 100% worth it to invest in Prime – it’s going to be a lifesaver. Trust us.
Conclusion
Now you know how to chat in CS:GO, be it with everyone, only your team, while running or by using predetermined messages thanks to binds. Furthermore, you also know how to personalize your chat experience in CS2, along with reasons why you should invest in the Prime subscription to make chatting in the game a lot better.
For more information about how to chat in CS:GO and CS2, you can leave your comments below and we will answer them as soon as possible.