Chime logo Chime
Why Features No internet? Security Who's it for The story Install

Your messages. Nobody else's.

Chime is a free messaging app. No account, no phone number, no ads, and nobody in the middle who can read what you send. It even keeps working when the internet doesn't.

Install for Android How is that possible? →

Free, no ads, no tracking. Android 14 and up.

Chime chat list
WHY CHIME

Every other chat app was built to know you. Chime was built the other way round.

Most chat apps need your phone number.

Yours travels with every message you send. Chime never asks for it.

Most chat apps watch who you talk to.

Even when they can't read the words, they log the who and the when. Chime doesn't keep a record to lose.

Most chat apps stop when the internet stops.

No signal, no conversation. Chime keeps going.

FEATURES

Built to keep you talking.
Not to keep you watched.

Locked

Only the two of you can read it

Messages are locked the moment you press send, and only the person you sent them to can open them. Not us, not your network provider. Nobody in between. Scramble keeps your screen unreadable to anyone glancing over your shoulder, so privacy doesn't stop at encryption, it stays with you on the bus, in a queue, wherever you're reading.

An encrypted chat
Works offline

No signal? Still chatting.

At a festival, on a flight, in a blackout: phones near each other pass Chime messages along, no internet needed.

Bluetooth mesh relay
Anonymous

Hide who you're talking to, even from your network

Turn on Tor routing and your internet provider, or anyone watching the network, can't see who you're messaging. Your connection, kept off the map.

Tor Mode connected
Guardians

Trusted friends, keep you safe

Choose a few people you trust as your Guardians. Forgotten your PIN? They can let you back in. Want a backup? Your Guardians each carry a piece they cannot read. Offline for a while? They're your postman too, carrying your waiting messages to you over the mesh, still locked, so nobody but you can read them, not even the Guardian carrying them.

Guardians list
Emergency

When things go wrong, Chime is still on.

Emergency groups light up live beacons, a nearby-devices radar, and shared location, all over the mesh. Dead zones, disasters, protests, blackouts: if a phone is in range, a message gets through.

Fire beacon
Yours to shape

Not one size fits all.

Groups, photos, voice messages, Push-to-Talk, replies, reactions, disappearing messages. Turn modules on or off, choose your connection, decide how private you want to be. Chime bends to how you actually live, not the other way round.

Chime settings and themes
NO INTERNET?

When the internet goes down, Chime doesn't.

Chime sends your message the shortest way it can: straight over the internet, over the local WiFi you share, or, when there's no internet at all, hopping quietly from one nearby phone to the next until it reaches your friend. You don't choose; it just finds a way.

Over the internet Same WiFi Phone to phone

Phone to phone works over Bluetooth range, so it needs other Chime phones nearby to pass the message along.

you friend the same sealed message, whichever way it travels
SECURITY

Three promises. In plain words.

01

We can't read your messages.

Not "won't". Can't. They are locked with keys that only exist on your phone.

02

We don't know who you talk to.

No address book upload, no contact list on our side, no log of who messaged whom.

03

There's nothing to hack, leak, or sell.

Your messages live on your phone, not on our computers. A company cannot lose what it never had.

Want the full picture, including what Chime can't protect you from? Read the technical page. We keep it honest.

WHO IT'S FOR

Not for everyone.
Perhaps exactly for you.

CHIME IS FOR YOU IF
  • You think who you talk to is nobody's business, including ours
  • You're somewhere the crowd swamps the signal: a festival, a match, a mountain
  • You'd rather no company anywhere held your contact list or your conversations
  • You have people you love somewhere services get watched, blocked, or knocked out
MAYBE NOT FOR YOU IF
  • You're on iPhone. Chime is Android-only, by design
  • You want your history backed up in a cloud and synced to five devices
  • You rely on voice calls or video calls; Chime does not support these
  • Your life or liberty depends on your messaging. Chime is young and hasn't yet had an independent audit; until it has, pair it with a proven tool like Signal. We'd rather lose the download than pretend
THE STORY

Why I built this

In late 2024 I started my degoogle journey and moved to Proton. It was an eye opener: mail with no ads, photo storage that doesn't auto-build videos out of your private photos. It was bliss. A nice little suite of apps to replace Google and all its tracking.

Then came the UK Government's announcement that it wants to start knowing what you are talking about. To me, that is taking away our freedom of speech.

So, inspired by Proton's ethos, I decided to have a go at building a decentralised chat app: no accounts, no phone numbers, end-to-end encrypted by default.

As the idea grew, so did the reason for it. I have family and friends in Taiwan, and I started thinking about what happens during an earthquake, a typhoon, or something worse: a potential invasion. How do people stay in touch when the services they rely on are down, overloaded, or compromised? How do neighbours coordinate? How do relatives keep in touch with each other? Right now, the answer is a myriad of different apps, most of them centralised, most of them asking for your phone number, most of them tracking you.

That gave Chime a purpose beyond privacy. Keep people talking. Keep them private. Keep them resilient.

S
The person behind Chime
Founder, developer, and first tester
THE TESTERS

Real people already use this.

Thank you to the testers in the UK, Taiwan and Spain who walk around with early builds, break things on purpose, and send screenshots at midnight. Chime is better because of you.

The Boss Mick Ru Foolon Danny Lola Picnic Bench The Boy Old Lady Stan WuPangPang Hsuan Kent Tanjiro Ellepi
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INSTALL

Get Chime on your Android phone.

Chime isn't in an app store, so you install it straight from this site. Your phone will warn you about installing apps from outside the store; that's normal, and here's exactly what each step looks like.

Download the install file
Requires Android 14 or newer
Free No ads No catch

Want to check the file is really from us before installing? See how to verify your download.

1
Download the file
Tap the button. Your browser saves the install file to your phone.
2
Allow this one install
A warning appears about unknown apps. Tap "Settings", then turn the switch on. This is normal.
3
Open Chime and pick a name
Tap "Install", then "Open". Quick setup and start talking. That's it.