TextSecure Private Messenger

23,694

Open Whisper Systems Communication

PEGI 3

TextSecure Private Messenger- screenshot thumbnail

TextSecure is a messaging app that allows you to take back your privacy while easily communicating with friends.

Using TextSecure, you can communicate instantly while avoiding SMS fees, create groups so that you can chat in real time with all your friends at once, and share media or attachments all with complete privacy. The server never has access to any of your communication and never stores any of your data.

★ Private. TextSecure uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time.

★ Open Source. TextSecure is Free and Open Source, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. TextSecure is the only private messenger that uses open source peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe.

★ Group Chat. TextSecure allows you to create encrypted groups so you can have private conversations with all your friends at once. Not only are the messages encrypted, but the TextSecure server never has access to any group metadata such as the membership list, group title, or group icon.

★ Fast. The TextSecure protocol is designed to operate in the most constrained environment possible. Using TextSecure, messages are instantly delivered to friends.

TextSecure is not currently compatible with tablets, but support for larger screens is on our roadmap and will be included in a future release!

Please file any bugs, issues, or feature requests at:
https://github.com/whispersystems/textsecure/issues

More details:
http://www.whispersystems.org/#encrypted_texts

Reviews

4.5

23,694 total

5 16,027

4 4,777

3 1,405

2 623

1 855

Lori Raf

Different Phones? Why are some reviews complaining that they don't know if their message was read or not? I see 1 if sent then 2 check marks showing me that it's been read. And notifications; quiet "Ding" AND small blue flashing LED lets me be aware (Samsung Galaxy S4 mini.) GREAT app!

Matthew mcEwen

Perfect Absolutely perfect for keeping information safe and secure. Easy to use, great system!! I love it to pieces!!

Susie and Jeremy Wiedemann

Easy to use. Love the encryption. Love the app. Even have my mom using it. :) Really appreciate the devlopers' persistence through issues and openness to discussion on issues.

Brock Broussard

Thanks for restoring the completely black Dark Theme! It's a great app for those looking for anything but Telegram and every other messaging app purporting to utilize secure end-to-end encryption, and it just works. It uses only a KB or two for a short text. To the devs: thank you for listening and restoring a completely black dark theme! It's the little things like that which I appreciate. ☺ Now to patch up encrypted exports!

Stephan Burkhardt

Open source, free, great interface and most of all, the most trustworthy cryptography you can easily use today. What is not to love?

Cash Rion

Awesome app! Is it able to encrypt between Signal for iPhones?

User reviews

Lori Raf September 29, 2015

Matthew mcEwen October 4, 2015

Perfect Absolutely perfect for keeping information safe and secure. Easy to use, great system!! I love it to pieces!!

Susie and Jeremy Wiedemann September 29, 2015

Easy to use. Love the encryption. Love the app. Even have my mom using it. :) Really appreciate the devlopers' persistence through issues and openness to discussion on issues.

Open Whisper Systems July 2, 2013

Thanks for the feedback. The black-on-black text should be fixed in 0.9.9.7

Brock Broussard September 30, 2015

Stephan Burkhardt October 4, 2015

Open source, free, great interface and most of all, the most trustworthy cryptography you can easily use today. What is not to love?

Cash Rion October 12, 2015

Awesome app! Is it able to encrypt between Signal for iPhones?

Warwick Burns October 7, 2015

Simple and great Pros: visually clean interface, encryption (of course), replaces normal texting app, MMS is more reliable than GoSMS (IMHO), see when read, fast and smooth, imports texts from app you're replacing making for a simple switch! Cons: could use a schedule text feature, a way to manage groups from within the app. Could do with a few more themes than just dark and light. Both are nice though. Overall: It's a great app and I'm glad I made the switch!

Imix October 10, 2015

Good but Annoying! Why the hell are you forcing users to register their number since it is not necessary for regular sms? It should be left as an option if user want to use secure sms and not FORCING it to get its number registered... And btw the registered number can be faked so please dont force number registration because it works well without secure sms enabled. I personaly replaced stock sms with this app but cant believe that it have such a stupid glitch... There is another thing very bad but i used my character limit..

Taylor Boatright October 6, 2015

MMS on Fi Broken Had to ditch TextSecure. MMS would not send on my Project Fi Nexus 6. Sad to go :(

Laurenz Nikolaus October 5, 2015

Lack of encrypted SMS TextSecure used to be one of the best (if not 'the best') App for encrypting your messages. Nowadays, it's still very good, though I do miss the encrypted SMS a lot. Bring back this feature and you'll get a 5 star rating! It's no excuse that key exchange might confuse some non professional users since it's your responsibility to find a well-working solution.

MagicPeaceLove October 1, 2015

Real privacy, @Snowden-approved! Dead simple to use and apparently quite secure and private. Once you start experiencing real privacy in your online communications you never want to go back to having all your communications be subject to monitoring by unaccountable government entities and unaccountable private corporations.

Rick Flores October 5, 2015

HD picture handling. It's an issue with textsecure itself and not a carrier file size cap issue because when I send an HD picture with normal mms app to non textsecure user it sends the picture and user gets its in HD (unaffected). When sent to a non text secure user via textsecure the user receives the pix fuzzy/pixelized (quality downgraded). Please replicate on your end to become familiar before responding.

Open Whisper Systems October 5, 2015

Hey Rick, standard MMS messages have a 300kb maximum size, as imposed by carriers. Messages to other TextSecure users can be up to 100MB. TextSecure also supports groups. Just select 'New group' from the menu in the conversation list.

Jasson Garcia October 2, 2015

Question The app is great! But let's say that I want to switch my messaging app? How do I "unsecured" those text to transfer them to my next texting app?

Justin Oakley October 1, 2015

Great Application Would have to say that it needs a few things done to make it a bit better, but overall "A". Just needs better encryption processing. 5 ⭐'s if you guys could make it compatible with users that don't have the application. Thanks. Mr. Oakley.

Jason Schachter October 7, 2015

Great app Fully secure, and functions better than standard apps. Even after stage fright is done I'm going to keep it.

Diego Miele October 8, 2015

It's ok, but... ...even with the last update, I need to open the app to get new messages. Maybe it's my cheap phone, but this doesn't happen with other apps (whatsapp, fb messenger, etc).

Open Whisper Systems June 14, 2015

Hey Diego, if you're getting delayed messages it means either: 1. You've turned off background data for TS or google services. 2. You have a bad gapps install. 3. Your network blocks GCM. 4. You've used something like titanium backup. 5. You've used something like xprivacy.

Matthew Moore September 28, 2015

Brilliant! Nice to see it come back full circle. I certainly hope TPTB here on the Devs country can get a handle on Google actually overstepping themselves and mucking off with WhisperSystems ability to stay secure. One feels as if Big Brother and Google are sleeping together!!

Shawn B October 5, 2015

Was 5 stars Had a system and app update. Been horrible since. Very upset, I loved this app.

Jessica C. October 10, 2015

So far so good I like that I can connect with ios users and not just android. Will update if anything changes.

Rev. G October 1, 2015

Needs Updated ASAP! A new security app update from Google/Android has messed up the encryption. Idk what else it could be?Cause it was the only app, I've updated today...

Bob Lannon September 30, 2015

Easier to install than Whatsapp. Seriously. Like falling off a log. A+ app, currently recommending to everyone I know.

Royce Williams October 1, 2015

Sweet spot Moxie and team have both the technical chops and the broad long-term societal viewpoint to do this The Right Way.

Shankar Kulumani September 30, 2015

Simple to use with validated encryption Great texting app that offers verified security. Actively being developed with updates coming out almost weekly. Looking forward to all the future work. Both users simply need to install the app and start texting. Desktop/chrome client and multi device support is in the works. Very responsive dev team that fixes bugs within hours. Great community and service. Thank you

Alexandru-Mihai Maftei October 7, 2015

5/5 Wouldn't bang. Now please stop asking me to rate. It does the job well, can't complain. I've rated it and it still asks me. I think you've got a bug right here.

Jay Beebe October 11, 2015

Works wonderfully! Does what you want it to. If you don't have 4G though it won't work.

Harry Whitecross September 29, 2015

TextSecure Private Great, BUT my dual SIM device seems to create confusion. Guess just setting one for now will get it spot on. You mean you never knew Big G, No Such and GCHQ still do a three way!?? Living on the planet Mud are we??

A Google User October 4, 2015

DROID RAZR Finally bumped this product up to 5 stars and then it starts messing up.. bah! The overall UI has become unresponsive and messages seem to be getting either severely delayed or "lost". I hope this all gets resolved soon cause this is such a great product. (Why has the manual encrypted export been retired?)

Open Whisper Systems June 27, 2013

Dang, we add the dark theme, and you're sticking with 0.5.7 in protest of the avatar icons? =)

Lauritz Vesteraas Thaulow October 11, 2015

Best available option This app has all the important security and usability boxes checked. All the current alternatives are inferior or lacking in some way. With iOS compatibility in place, it is the perfect solution!

Chris Mavrakis September 30, 2015

Amazing. Excellent. I love it! I don't have much to say. This is my favorite text app. I really hope all my friends were on it so I could uninstall WhatsApp etc. Textsecure has got security and usability right. My wish list: homescreen widget to a specific conversation, pc client which I know is almost impossible to do securely so cross it off. Congratulations devs!

Omar B October 1, 2015

Group chats have all sorts of problems on reinstalls, plus they are painfully slow since every message has to be encrypted with a thousand different keys. Still lacks profile pictures and needs a better UI -- more colors for the average users who have never heard of the axolotl protocol. Also, the iOS version of Signal looks terrible (and works terribly) and has a different icon. The app overall is very confusing to non tech-savvy people who don't know what "databases" and "encryption" etc are; I often hear people complaining they just don't know what the app is doing (and to be honest, most of the options there are currently should go into the "advanced" section). Drop the bossy/rude attitude on github, if you treat people with disrespect you'll be treated the same. Encryption should be an obstacle to people trying to break it, not to users trying to use it. Will increase the rating when I'll be able to set a profile picture and use group chats comfortably.

Open Whisper Systems September 21, 2015

Alex Trew October 6, 2015

Easy Useful Trustworthy, and so easy to setup that I am having several friends use it for group protection.

Ameri Tech October 3, 2015

Worldwide use This has been a very good app for sending messages anywhere in the world. Do wish encrypted message's were such with each text sent and not just encrypted to others using this app also. I'll give a five star rating when every text is encrypted.

Jeffrey van Putten October 4, 2015

Good Wish i could move my profile/key to a new phone+sim

Mell Mell September 30, 2015

Permission? More like intrusive! Why do you need all those permissions?? Why do you need access to my mic? Why can you send emails without my knowledge? Why do you need to know where I am? Send and deliver my messages, THAT'S IT.

E Perez October 7, 2015

Amazing app! For the everyday normal user that want to have a little more privacy this apps meets the standards. I have a question, if I receive a 3rd party text (like a subscription to something) is it still free or it will be charged by my carrier?

Alex Andor October 3, 2015

Is now my default messenger app Much more snappier and responsive compared to the old default messenger app and does everything if not more. The fact that it allows encrypted text chat when both parties use the app is just icing on cake.

Phil Uomo October 5, 2015

help! it has been working fine until tonight! I tried to send a text file as an attachment by renaming it as an image with a .png extension. the reason for this is the app doesn't allow txt extensions...now the app is in a permanent crashing loop and I cannot even get my messages out! I submitted a bug report from inside the app so this is a more detailed report...help!

Deo Dariel September 29, 2015

Almost Perfect! I do love this app that it has a very unique user interface, and I hope dual sim support will be added soon .. 😂😁

David Petrizze October 12, 2015

Mms no work, moto G, republic wireless. Probably an upstream bug, it happened with the default messaging app too. At least this messenger doesn't crash when I receive them!