You have been invited

Someone wants to talk privately

They sent you an Ombra code. Ombra is messaging with no account — no phone number, no email, nothing to sign up for.

Do not have it yet?

Install Ombra first, then open this link again — the code below is what adds them, and it only works inside the app.

On iPhone: open this page in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android: browser menu, then Install app.

One use

This code works once. If it has already been used, ask them for a fresh one.

What we hold about you

Not a policy. There is simply nowhere to put any of it.

0

Phone numbers
0

Email addresses
0

Passwords
0

Real names
0

Contact lists
0

Messages we can read
0

IP addresses in any log
0

Trackers or analytics

* If your friend's phone is off, the message waits with us until it can be delivered — for up to 14 days, then it is deleted. It is locked the whole time. Opening it needs keys that exist only on your phone and theirs, and never on ours.

How it works

An address, not an account

GENERATING ON THIS DEVICE

7F2Q-MK94-XB1T-RV6P-ZD3N-LC8W-HA5

Your address is made from a key that was just created here — not a record fetched from anywhere.

Your address is made from your key. Nothing is registered and nobody is asked.

It is how a friend checks it is really you. Read it out to them once, in person or on the phone. Nobody can fake that.

There is no password, because there is nothing to log in to.

Only the two of you can read it

The keys live on the two phones talking, and they change with every message. A key taken today will not open what was said yesterday.

+ Messages that delete themselves, set per chat
+ Read receipts are off unless you turn them on
+ Photos have their location and camera data removed first
+ Notifications say a message arrived, never who from or what

THREE NAMES SOMEBODY MIGHT TRY

@a_l_p_h_a

@a1pha

@ALPHA

Underscores, a digit standing in for a letter, a change of case — three ways to imitate one name.

A name nobody can copy

A name is easier to pass on than an address. It is optional, and free from four characters up.

Lookalikes cannot be registered. Characters that look like each other count as the same character, so @a1pha and @alpha are one name, held by whoever got there first.

We keep a list of the names that have been claimed, with no address next to them, so nobody can pretend to be you. It is the only list we have.

Pricing

The app is free

Not a trial, and not a cut-down version. Everything that keeps your messages private is free and always will be.

Free, forever

+Unlimited messages and chats
+Every privacy feature, with nothing held back
+A name of four characters or more
+Photos and files up to 25 MB
+Backups, and moving to a new phone
+Notifications, screen lock, disappearing messages

Upgrades

Extras, bought once. Nothing here renews and nothing about privacy is behind them.

Short name

One to three letters, or a word people know — @rae, @river

€29

Bigger files

Send up to 100 MB instead of 25 MB

€12

Five short names

To give away to friends

€99

Or get a short name free: invite a friend, and when they have been using Ombra a week it is yours.

We take cards. The payment is never tied to you.

You pay by card and get a code. Your phone swaps that code for a token, and we sign the token without ever seeing it. You spend it whenever you like.

We can see that someone paid. We cannot see which name they bought.

To be straight with you: the card company knows your card, the same as any shop. What we are saying is narrower. Nothing about the payment can be joined to your address, your name here, or your messages — there is no account to attach it to, and the token you spend carries nothing back to the payment.

Checking us

Do not take our word for it

Ombra runs in your browser, which means we hand you the app every time you open it. In theory we could hand one person a different one.

So the app shows a code for the exact version you were given. Compare it with a friend running the same version. If the codes differ, one of you got something else — and that is the thing you would otherwise never spot.

The Ombra settings screen showing the version and its code.

There is no recovery

Lose the phone with no backup and it is gone. Nobody has a copy, including us. Make a backup on day one.

One phone at a time

Your key lives on one device. You can move it across with a short code, but nothing syncs between two.

No outside review yet

Nobody independent has examined our code. It is built on a well-known, openly published design, which is not the same thing.

Get it

Install it first, then set up

The installed app has its own storage. A key made in a browser tab will not come across, so add it to your home screen before you start.

iPhone or iPad

1 Open this page in Safari.
2 Tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
3 Open Ombra from your home screen.

Android or computer

1 Open the browser menu — the three dots.
2 Choose Install app.
3 Open Ombra from where it installed.