Messages only the two of you can read
Enc Chat is a private messenger. Text, voice calls and video calls are encrypted on your own phone and unlocked only on the phone you sent them to, so nobody in between can read or hear them, including the server that carries them and the person who wrote it.
Get the appWhat it does
- Chats and groups. One to one messages and group chats, with replies, reactions, edits and read receipts.
- Voice and video calls. One to one, or a group call with up to six people, and you can turn a voice call into a video call without hanging up.
- Photos, video, files and voice notes. Sent encrypted, and shown in the chat rather than dumped in a folder.
- Disappearing messages. Set a timer on a chat and messages remove themselves from both phones and from the server when it runs out.
- View once. Send a photo, video or voice note that closes for good after it is opened.
- Stickers and GIFs. Including sticker packs imported from WhatsApp.
- Backup and restore. Your chat history is saved as an encrypted file you keep, so a new phone can pick up where the old one left off.
- Updates inside the app. After the first install, new versions arrive in the app and install with one tap.
What it knows about you
An account is a username you choose and a password. There is no phone number, no email address and no contact list upload, so there is nothing to sell and nothing to hand over.
When you sign up you are shown a recovery code once. It is the only way back into the account if you forget the password, and the server cannot show it to you again, so write it down.
The keys that unlock your messages are made on your phone. They leave it only when you link a computer, and then encrypted so that only that computer can open them. The server stores messages only until they are delivered, and it stores them the way it received them, which is unreadable. That also means nobody can recover your history for you: your backup is the copy that survives.
One phone at a time is signed in to an account, and up to four computers can be linked to it. Signing in on a new phone signs the old one out, along with every computer linked to it.
Who built it
Enc Chat is written and run by Elia El Khoury, as one person's project rather than a company product. The app, the server it talks to and this page are all part of the same piece of work.
Being a small project is the honest caveat too: it has not been through an outside security audit, so treat it as a careful build by one author rather than an audited product.
Getting it
Enc Chat is on Android, Windows and Linux, and in any browser. On an iPhone or iPad it runs in Safari: add it to your Home Screen and it opens like an app. There is no App Store version. The computer versions link to your phone.
Go to the download page