Questions

Where can I get FlickerTalk?

On iPhone, from the App Store. On Android, from Google Play.

Do I need an account or phone number?

No. FlickerTalk creates a cryptographic identity on your phone. There is no email address, phone number or password to register. Add someone by scanning their code or opening their contact link.

Do you keep logs of what I do?

No. We do not keep activity logs, connection histories, call histories or histories of IP addresses. This is a deliberate privacy choice: we do not keep a record of your activity to analyse or turn into a profile.

Does that mean your servers store nothing?

No. The service needs a small device record to authenticate your phone and route notifications and pending messages. It includes your device ID, public key, a hash of your routing code and an encrypted push token when notifications are enabled.

Undelivered messages may also wait in the optional encrypted mailbox for up to 7 days. These technical records are not a chat history or an activity log. See How it works for the full breakdown.

Can you read my messages?

No. Messages are end-to-end encrypted. We cannot read them, including messages waiting in the offline mailbox.

Where is my chat history?

On your phone and on the phones of the people you talk to, including every member of a circle. We do not store your chat history on our servers or provide a cloud backup.

What happens when the other phone is offline?

If both of you allow the mailbox, your message can wait there, end-to-end encrypted. It is deleted when picked up, or after 7 days at the latest. Files and calls do not use the mailbox.

If either person has disabled the mailbox, the message waits on the sender's phone until a direct connection is possible.

Can I turn the mailbox off?

Yes, in Settings. Without it, messages wait on your phone until the phones can connect directly.

What happens if I lose or change my phone?

We cannot recover your identity or chat history from our servers. If you still have your old phone, use “Move to a new phone” before erasing it or uninstalling FlickerTalk. This transfers your identity, contacts and history directly between your phones, never through our servers, and the old phone forgets its identity afterwards.

Can I use the same identity on two phones?

Not currently. FlickerTalk uses one identity on one phone at a time.

Are there group chats?

Yes, small ones, called circles: a closed group of your contacts, up to 32 members, you included. An admin adds people, and nobody can join on their own. Admins can remove members, make other members admins, rename the circle and choose that only admins write, so that everyone else reads, like a channel. Anyone can leave a circle.

Circles are for text messages. There are no calls or file sharing in a circle, no read receipts, and someone who joins later does not see what was said before.

Our server keeps no record of circles. A message in a circle goes to each member as a separate end-to-end encrypted copy, which our server cannot tell apart from a one-to-one message.

What do other members of a circle learn about me?

Every member receives your contact card, the same one you hand over when someone scans your code: your FlickerTalk ID, the name on your card and what their phone needs to reach yours. So a member who is not your contact can write to you. Their message arrives as a request, and they cannot call you unless you accept them.

Only a contact you have accepted can add you to a circle you have never been in.

Can other people see my IP address?

During a direct connection, the other person's device can see your public IP address. That includes the members of a circle you are in, whose phones may connect to yours directly to deliver its messages. You can choose to route calls through our relay to hide it from the other person during calls. This setting does not promise to hide your IP address during every kind of connection.

Why does FlickerTalk ask for notifications?

Notifications help wake your phone when a message or call arrives. The wake-up notification does not contain your message or identify its sender. Apple or Google still process the delivery of the notification.

How much does it cost?

The first year from installation is free. After that, it is €0.99 a year for users aged 21 and over. It remains free while you are under 21.

The annual payment helps fund the service without advertising or tracking.

Can you investigate a missing message or recover a conversation?

We cannot inspect your conversations, restore your history or trace past activity through server logs. We deliberately do not keep those records.

For general questions or to report a problem, contact info@flickertalk.com. Only include information you choose to share. Do not send private conversations, private keys or sensitive files.

How do I delete my data?

Use Settings → “Erase this phone” before uninstalling. This removes your device record from our server and erases the data FlickerTalk keeps on your phone.

Uninstalling alone does not remove the server-side device record. If you have already uninstalled, contact info@flickertalk.com with your FlickerTalk ID, if available, to request its removal. We may need to verify that the record belongs to you. See Delete your data.

Is FlickerTalk open source?

Yes. The app and server source code are available under the AGPL-3.0 licence at github.com/FlickerTalk.