Chat apps with no mobile number: a safety checklist
Need a chat app without a mobile number? Before you install, check five things: sign-up method, who can message you, reports, identity and what the app keeps.
If you want a safe chatting app without a mobile number, do not start with a list of apps. Start with five questions you can ask of any app in about ten minutes: how does it sign you up, who can message you first, what happens to a bad actor, does it check who people are, and what does it keep about you. An app that answers those well is safer than one that simply skips the phone number. I built Hashti, so I will use it as one example, and I will say plainly where it does not fit.
I wrote a comparison of specific apps yesterday. This post is the other half: the checklist you can use on apps I have never heard of.
Why "no number" is not the same as "safe"
A phone number does two jobs. It lets an app find your friends, and it makes it slightly harder to open hundreds of fake accounts, because numbers cost money. When an app drops the number, you gain privacy from other users. You can also lose that small barrier against fake accounts.
So an app with email-only sign-up can be good for your privacy and worse for your safety, unless something else does the number's second job. That "something else" is what the checklist is really looking for.
This is my opinion, built from running a chat app, not a measured result. But I think it is a useful way to read any app's sign-up page.
Question 1: How does it sign you up?
Look at the first screen. There are usually four paths.
An email and password. Simple, and you control what you hand over. A throwaway email address works for most of these.
A phone number only. This is what you are trying to avoid. Some of these apps let you hide the number from other users later. That is better than nothing, but the company still has it.
A social login, such as Apple or Google. This is easy, but it ties the chat account to another account you already have.
A document check. Some apps ask for a government ID once. That is the most you can give, and I come back to it below.
None of these is wrong. Choose the one that matches what you want to protect. If you only want strangers not to see your number, a username on top of a number may be enough. If you do not want to give the company a number at all, look for email sign-up.
Question 2: Who can message you first?
This is the question people forget, and it matters more than the sign-up screen.
Open the privacy settings before you add anyone. Look for a setting that controls who can start a conversation with you. The best defaults are: only people in my contacts, or only people who share a room with me. The worst default is: anyone who finds my username.
If you plan to meet new people, you will have to allow some contact. Then the question changes: can the app limit who is able to contact strangers in the first place? Some apps let any new account message anyone on the first day. Others hold new or unchecked accounts back. The second kind is far less likely to flood you with spam.
Question 3: What happens when someone behaves badly?
Find the report button before you need it. Then look for what the app says happens after a report. Good signs: a clear page that describes the rules, a real consequence for repeated offences, and a way to block someone that actually stops them seeing you.
The sign to be careful of is an app that has no visible way to report, or one where a banned person can return in minutes with a new account. You can often tell from a few minutes in a public room. If the same spam appears again and again, the app is not acting on it.
Question 4: Does it check who people are?
Most apps do not. They ask for an email or a number and nothing more. That is fine for talking to friends. It is weaker for talking to strangers, because anyone can be anyone.
Some apps verify identity. The cost is that you give them something. The gain is that the people around you cannot create ten accounts after being banned.
I will be direct about my own choice here, because it is the opposite of "no number". Hashti checks identity once, against a government document. The photo is deleted. A fingerprint stays, so the same document cannot open a second account. Accounts that are not verified cannot host rooms, speak in voice rooms, or message strangers. Twelve verified reports close an account permanently.
That is a real trade. If your reason for searching is that you do not want to give any company any identity at all, Hashti is not for you, and I would rather you know that now. If your reason is that you want strangers to be accountable, it may be exactly what you want.
Question 5: What does the app keep about you?
Read the privacy page for three things. What it collects at sign-up. Whether messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning only you and the other person can read them. And whether you can delete your account and have the data go.
Be careful with the word "encrypted". Many apps encrypt messages in transit, which protects them from someone on the network. End-to-end encryption is stronger. If it matters to you, look for the exact words, and check whether it is on by default or only in a special mode. I will not claim anything about another app's settings from memory. Open its help page and read it.
For Hashti, I will only state what I know to be true: it is free, it is 18+, and it asks for identity once, as described above. I do not market it as a private, anonymous app, because it is not one.
A quick way to score an app
Take any app and give it a point for each of these.
- You can sign up without a number, or the number is hidden from other users.
- You can control who messages you first.
- There is a report button and a stated consequence.
- Banned people cannot easily return.
- The privacy page is readable and says what is kept.
Four or five points is a good app for your purpose. Two or fewer means you are relying on luck.
When to use something else
If you want to talk to people you already know, use a messenger built for that, such as Signal. It is not built for meeting strangers, but it is very good at what it does, and it is run by a nonprofit.
If you want a community around a hobby and are fine with email sign-up, Discord is the obvious one. How safe a server is depends mostly on its moderators, which is my opinion from using it.
If you want public rooms with names and topics, where the people speaking have been checked, you can read about how Hashti rooms work and about how it handles safety. It is out now on the App Store, and Android is in its closed test.
The short version
Do not pick an app because it skips the number. Pick it because it passes the five questions. Check the sign-up screen, the first-message setting, the report path, the identity policy and the privacy page. It takes ten minutes, and it tells you more than any ranking list.
If an app scores badly and you still want to try it, use a throwaway email, share nothing personal, and leave if the first room feels wrong. You are allowed to leave.
Hashti is free, and it is 18+. Hashti Plus — live translation, writing help and catch-ups — is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and nothing else costs anything. How rooms work is on the rooms page, and how reports and the ID check work is on the safety page.