Keep it HushHush.
Messages only you and your friend can read, inside the apps you already use.
On a computer? Scan the code on Maya’s phone with your phone’s camera. It opens HushHush in your phone’s app store.
WhatsApp carries it. It can’t read it.
You write in HushHush. It encrypts the message on your phone, then it travels by itself over Telegram, Matrix or email, or as text you paste into any other app. Only the other person’s HushHush turns it back into words.
Example conversation. The scrambled text is real output of HushHush’s four-layer encryption, made with a key that has since been thrown away.
Locked four times over.
Before a message leaves your phone, four different ciphers encrypt it, one inside the other, each with its own 256-bit key. In copy-and-paste chats the order is random, picked when you pair; automatic chats use one fixed order and four new keys for every message. Cracking one cipher would only uncover the next layer of ciphertext.
The same ciphers protect messages in WhatsApp, Messenger and Threema, and the passwords in Apple’s Keychain. None of those companies is connected with HushHush. What’s different is where the keys come from: yours are made when you and your friend meet, and no server ever hands them out. Using the same ciphers doesn’t make two apps the same, though: how an app puts them together matters as much.
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XSalsa20-Poly130583 bytes
Threema encrypts its messages with it.
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AES-256-GCM111 bytes
Apple encrypts Keychain items with it, and 1Password its vaults.
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XChaCha20-Poly1305151 bytes
Its sibling, ChaCha20-Poly1305, encrypts WireGuard VPN tunnels.
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AES-256-CBC + HMAC-SHA-256208 bytes
WhatsApp and Messenger encrypt messages with it.
Real output of each layer of HushHush’s encryption, made with keys that were then thrown away. Example message.
Three steps, and the second one is a coffee.
HushHush has no directory to look people up in. The keys are made when you and your friend meet, so nobody else ever holds them.
Getting started
Step 1 of 3You both install it
You and your friend each install HushHush and choose a password. No account, no phone number.
Free on the App Store and Google Play.
Meet and scan, or send a code
Tap Add a contact and scan each other’s code. That one scan makes the keys, on your phone and your friend’s and nowhere else. A safety number lets you double-check it face to face. Can’t meet? Send a one-time invite code through any app instead.
Send through any app
Connect Telegram, Matrix or your email once and messages go by themselves, each with a fresh key. Or copy the encrypted text into WhatsApp, Slack, SMS or anything else, and they tap Paste to read it.
Everything lives on the phone. Locked.
There is no HushHush server to hack, subpoena or switch off, because there is no HushHush server.
Only on this device
Messages, contacts and keys sit in one encrypted store on your phone, opened by your password. No cloud, no sync, no account.
No account, no phone number
Nobody can look you up, because there is nothing to look up. People reach you only after you have paired: in person, or with a code you sent them.
A duress password
A second password you choose. Under pressure it opens a decoy HushHush with its own chats, or wipes the real one.
It locks itself
Face ID or fingerprint, an auto-lock timer, and a growing lockout that wipes the store after repeated wrong passwords.
Nothing over your shoulder
Screenshots and screen recording are blocked on Android, and HushHush blurs itself in the iPhone app switcher.
A password that’s slow to guess
Your password goes through Argon2id, which makes every single guess cost tens of megabytes of memory. It is never stored, not even as a hash.
What HushHush doesn’t do.
Worth knowing before you install, so nothing surprises you after.
It doesn’t hide who you talk to, or when
HushHush protects what a message says. The app that carries it still sees who sent it, when, and how long it is.
It isn’t a new messenger
Both people need HushHush, and you pair once, in person or with a one-time code. It works on top of the apps you already have.
Pasted messages all depend on your pairing key
Each pasted message gets its own key, but every one of them comes from the key you made when you paired. Automatic chats over Telegram, Matrix or email make brand-new keys for every message and delete the old ones.
It can’t recover your password
It is never stored, not even as a hash, so nobody can reset it, including us. Keep it somewhere safe.
It’s for phones, one-to-one
HushHush is for iPhone and Android, one person to one person.
Did someone send you this?
They want to message you without the app in the middle being able to read it. Install HushHush and choose a password. Then scan each other’s code when you meet, or paste the invite code they send you.
Free on the App Store and Google Play.
Questions.
More on the support page, or email support@thehushhush.com.
Is HushHush free?
Do both people need HushHush?
Can we pair if we can’t meet?
Does HushHush replace WhatsApp or Signal?
Is my data stored on your servers?
Can I use HushHush on more than one device?
Just you and your friend.
Nobody in between.
Install HushHush, send it to your friend, and pair when you meet, or with a one-time code if you can’t.
Free on the App Store and Google Play.
On a computer?Point your phone’s camera here to get HushHush.