Mute Message, the LINE feature that delivers a chat without making the recipient's phone ring, is moving to the paid LYP Premium subscription. Until now anyone could switch it on from LINE Labs, the shelf where LINE parks its experimental features, but that free access is scheduled to end on August 26, 2026. Anyone who leans on it for late-night or early-morning messages has a decision to make.
From the experimental shelf to a paid perk
Mute Message sends a chat without triggering a notification on the recipient's device. It is meant for early mornings, late nights, and moments when the other person is at work or in class, letting you get a message across without a chime or a vibration interrupting them.
The feature has lived in LINE Labs, where users can try out functions ahead of their formal release. Flipping a single toggle in the settings screen was enough, and it cost nothing.
That arrangement ends on August 26, 2026. From then on, Mute Message becomes a benefit of LYP Premium, covering the LYP Premium Standard plan and the LYP Premium with Netflix plan. Because LINE Labs exists as a testing ground rather than a permanent home, the feature is essentially graduating into the paid tier as it becomes an official function.
LINE Labs holds other experiments as well, including voice search and voice control and a tool for sorting chats into folders. Only Mute Message is affected here; the rest of the lab is not being moved behind a paywall in one sweep.
Two conditions for keeping the feature
Continuing to use Mute Message after LINE Labs drops it requires two things.
The first is an LYP Premium subscription. The Standard plan costs 508 yen per month including tax, and bundles unlimited use of eligible LINE stickers, Premium Unsend for retracting a message without the other party noticing, and backup for photos and videos. Mute Message joins that list as a new entry.
The second is an app update. Both the iOS and Android versions of LINE need to be on version 26.13.0 or later. Subscribing alone will not do it if the app is out of date, so updating ahead of time avoids a scramble once the perk goes live.
With both conditions met, the feature becomes available after the perk-based rollout begins. Messages already sent are unaffected by the end of LINE Labs access, so there is no risk of chat history changing or delayed notifications arriving later.
Notifications disappear, but the badge stays
One practical detail is worth noting: Mute Message suppresses only part of the notification.
Under the current flow, you type a message in a chat room, press and hold the send button, and tap Mute Message from the menu that appears. It is only two actions away from a normal send, which makes it easy to reserve for late-night messages.
On the receiving end, lock screen push notifications and the banner that slides in at the top of the display do not appear. The unread badge on the app icon, the chats tab, and the chat list, however, still shows up. In other words, the message will not make a sound or a vibration, but the recipient will see that something new arrived the moment they open LINE.
Treating it as a way to keep someone's phone quiet, rather than a way to arrive unnoticed, keeps expectations in the right place. Urgent messages can still go unseen for a long time, exactly as they could when the feature was free.
A pattern of small conveniences moving behind the paywall
LINE has increasingly placed its small, situational conveniences on the paid side. The LYP Premium Standard tier already included features that adjust how you appear to the other party, such as Premium Unsend. Mute Message now falls into the same family.
Hearing that something free is becoming paid tends to draw complaints, but the framing here is that the feature is leaving a trial program. Standard functions available to free users are not being taken away; what ends is the ability to keep using an experimental feature at no cost indefinitely.
Whether 508 yen a month is worth it for Mute Message alone depends on how much use you get from the other perks, such as unlimited stickers and backups. For anyone whose work involves late-night exchanges, or who regularly messages family across different schedules, it is worth a look.
Summary
LINE is ending free access to Mute Message through LINE Labs on August 26, 2026 and moving the feature into LYP Premium. The Standard plan and the with Netflix plan are covered, and the Standard plan costs 508 yen per month including tax. Keeping the feature requires both an LYP Premium subscription and an update to LINE version 26.13.0 or later. The behavior stays the same: no notification, but the unread badge remains visible, and messages sent before the change are unaffected.
References
[1] Ending the provision of Mute Message in LINE Labs – LINE Help Center
