Changelog
What's new
What's changed in the Relay app, month by month, newest first. The TestFlight beta is next — the download page has the latest.
October 2026
- Passkeys. Sign in with Face ID on a new iPhone, with no password or email code, and your chat list comes back with it.
- No email needed. Sign up with just a username and a passkey, or remove the email from an existing account. Nothing that identifies you is stored.
- Recovery key. A key you can view any time in Settings that signs you in and restores your chat list, even if you lose your passkey.
- Message requests. People you haven't chatted with land in Message Requests. They can't see your name, photo or read receipts, and their photos stay hidden, until you accept.
- Proxies. Where Relay is blocked, connect through a proxy someone shares with you. Relay checks the proxy and warns you if it's slow, blocking you or fails a security check. Anyone can run one.
- Every call uses the iPhone's call system: group calls and call links ring on the Lock Screen, Apple Watch and CarPlay, and calls answered while Relay is closed now connect reliably.
- Apple Watch app. Your recent chats, replies by dictation or emoji, and calls that start on your iPhone.
- Siri and notifications look like Relay. Sending with Siri, or pulling down a notification, shows the chat with its recent messages and your chat theme.
- Sensitive photos are blurred using Apple's on-device check, when you've turned it on. On a child's account they can't be opened.
- Faster group messages. Each group message is encrypted once and sealed for every member, and new chats use single-use post-quantum keys.
- Control Center buttons to scan a QR code or hide your hidden chats instantly.
- Accessibility. Text scales with your text size, VoiceOver reads chats and calls clearly, and animations respect Reduce Motion.
- Sign in without a password. Get a one-time code by email instead. Forgotten passwords and email changes also work with emailed codes now.
- Account password. Set one and it's required to sign in to your account on a new phone, so access to your email alone isn't enough to take it over.
- Find Me by Email is opt-in. People can't find you by your email address unless you turn it on.
- View-once media, forwarding and a QR scanner for adding people in person.
- Polls show their question in the chat and the chat list, and support multiple choices. Polls, locations and notes now show the time and delivery status.
- Location messages show just the map, with a full-screen live map when you tap it.
- Photo-only and emoji-only messages show their time and delivery status underneath.
- Photos have their location and other metadata removed before they're sent.
- Links you receive ask before opening, and map previews don't load until you ask.
- Incoming call alerts no longer carry who's calling; your phone learns that from the encrypted call itself.
- New calls move to a backup call relay when ours is down or overloaded, so calls keep connecting.
- Linking a device and Emergency Wipe now ask for your device passcode.
- Your devices list shows each device's model and region, shared end-to-end encrypted, and no longer shows duplicates.
- Report and block. Report a contact, a group, or a member of a group from their info screen.
- Delete your account from your profile. Deleting it also revokes Sign in with Apple.
- Your contacts are only checked when you tap Find Contacts, and Relay remembers your answer.
- iCloud backups run daily, stored under a name that can't be tied to your Relay account.
- On iPad: easier-to-read message widths, and ⌘↩ to send.
- Clearer error messages, VoiceOver labels on icon-only buttons and the safety-number screen, and a refreshed welcome screen.
- Security and privacy fixes from a full audit. Read and delivery ticks now reach people who were offline. Calls from message requests don't ring, and ended calls can't ring again. Group messages that arrive before their group are kept. The app lock covers open photos and sheets, and hidden chats stay off the Lock Screen. Disappearing messages no longer outlive their timer in backups, previews or notifications. A contact whose safety number changed can't change your groups or settings until you accept the new number.
September 2026
- Sealed sender on every message: our servers can't see who sent it.
- Blinded contact discovery. The usernames and emails you look up are scrambled on your phone, so our servers never see them.
- Encrypted groups. Group names, members and admins are kept by the members' phones only; our servers keep no group records. Group invite links are encrypted too.
- Encrypted iCloud Backup, protected by a recovery key only you hold.
- Multi-device sync. What you do on one of your devices is mirrored to the others.
- Voice and video calls, relayed through our call server by default so the other person never sees your IP address.
- Sign in with Apple or Google, plus contact invite links and a QR code to share.
- Notifications are a content-free wake-up by default. Faster Alerts, if you turn it on, carries the encrypted message inside the push.
- Our servers stop storing your email address in readable form.
- Account recovery, group profiles and username search.
- Live location updates as one moving bubble instead of a new message each time.
- Messages keep arriving when the usual connection is blocked.
- Reactions and a native press-and-hold menu on messages, and a new app icon.
August 2026
- Group chats, end-to-end encrypted.
- Voice notes and file attachments, with previews in the composer.
- Profiles. Your display name and photo, shared end-to-end encrypted with the people you talk to.
- Contact cards and custom names for your contacts.
- Custom chat wallpapers and bubble colours.
July 2026
- The first build: one-to-one messaging, end-to-end encrypted with the Signal Protocol and a post-quantum key exchange.
- Safety numbers, to check no one is sitting between you and the person you're talking to.
- Photos, encrypted on your phone before they're sent.
- Push notifications.
- Unsend a message you've sent.