RELAY

RELAY is a private messenger with nobody in the middle. There is no big company behind it that reads your chats, builds a profile of you or sells your data. You chat with a key, not with a phone number, and you do not need an account.

How it works

Your messages are encrypted on your phone and travel over relays: independent servers run by many different people and organisations, not by one company. A relay only passes on a locked packet. It cannot read it, and it does not know who sent it. Because there are many relays, no single one can switch you off or collect everything. You can see and change your relays in the settings.

What you get

• Familiar chats: bubbles, delivered and read ticks, replies, reactions, delete for everyone
• Add people by scanning their QR code, with no phone number and no access to your contacts
• Message requests: a message from someone you do not know waits until you accept it
• Disappearing messages, per chat
• Notifications that show only what you allow, and mute for 8 hours, a week or always
• App lock with fingerprint or screen lock, and blank screenshots while it is on
• An encrypted back-up of your chats in a file only you can open
• Light and dark mode

Private by design

• End-to-end encrypted, always
• No phone number, no email address, no tracking, no ads, no analytics
• Your identity is a key that only you control; an external signer app keeps even that key out of RELAY
• Open source, so anybody can check what the app does

RELAY Premium, €0.99 per month

Chatting one to one is free, and so is receiving everything, including photos and group messages. Premium adds sending photos, encrypted before they leave your phone, and creating group chats of up to 10 people, with videos, files and voice messages to come. Cancel any time in Google Play.

Good to know

• There is no password reset, because there is no account. If you lose your key and have no back-up, your chats cannot be recovered
• RELAY is built on the open Nostr network, so it also works with other apps that use it

Questions or feedback? Contact vaiiya@googlegroups.com.