How to Chat Without Giving Your Phone Number

Why Your Number Matters

Your phone number isn’t just any piece of information. In many countries it’s tied to your name and your ID, you rarely change it for years, and your bank, your doctor and half the world have it. When a chat app identifies you by your number:

• Anyone who has it can message you, even if they only saw it in an ad or in a group.
• The people you talk to can look it up and find out more about you.
• The app can match it against your contacts to learn who you know.

What to Look For in a Chat App

• It doesn’t ask for your number or email to create an account.
• It doesn’t have a user search where anyone can find you.
• It doesn’t read your contacts.
• It encrypts end to end, so not even the service itself can read what you say.

How It Works With TruchiChat

1. Install TruchiChat on your iPhone or Android phone.
2. Type a name, any name you like. There’s no phone or email field, and no password.
3. In Settings, create an invitation. A code appears with its QR code.
4. The other person scans it from their TruchiChat, or you send them the code some other way. Your chat opens.

Each invitation works only once and expires after 24 hours, so a code that gets out doesn’t work forever. The app doesn’t read your contacts: if you send a contact in a chat, it only gets that one.

Good to Know

• One account is one phone. If you change phones, you create another account and invite your contacts again; your chats don’t carry over.
• Chats are between two people: there are no groups.
• The server knows which account messages which, but an account doesn’t carry your number or your email. What exactly it sees.