New in version 0.1.21
Installed from F-Droid? Night Drop no longer checks for its own updates — F-Droid does that for you. Other builds (sideloaded, or the desktop AppImage) still ask the Night Drop onion site over Tor at most once a day, and only ever tell you; nothing downloads or installs on its own. "Update app" in the menu still works everywhere, and this is now spelled out in About.
The banner shown while your address publishes no longer promises "1-3 min" — it can take several minutes.
Night Drop is a privacy-first 1:1 messenger. Like a night deposit box: every message is a sealed envelope, dropped for one person only, opened by no one in between.
* Anonymous identities only — no phone number, no email, no account. Your identity is a keypair held on your device.
* End-to-end encryption with the Signal Double Ratchet: only the sender and receiver can read a message.
* Peer-to-peer over Tor by default. There is no clearnet path — the only network egress is the Tor network.
* Local-first storage: messages live on your device. Optional server storage is opt-in, capped at 24 hours, and shows a persistent warning in the chat while active.
* An untrusted store-and-forward relay carries offline delivery only. Any relay ever holds nothing but opaque, already-encrypted blobs under unlinkable handles — no keys, no plaintext, no identities, no logs.
* Authorization before the first message: a stranger cannot message you until you approve them (scan a pre-authorized QR, or exchange a short code whose secret words block a man-in-the-middle).
* Safety-number verification (scan or compare) to confirm no one is in the middle.
* User-owned encrypted backups: the recovery password is generated on your device, shown once, and never sent to any server. Lose it and the backup is unrecoverable — by design.
* No analytics, no crash reporters, no ad SDKs, no Google Play Services, and no third-party push service.
* No automatic update check on F-Droid installs. Other builds (sideloaded, or the desktop AppImage, which have no update channel of their own) ask the Night Drop onion site over Tor, at most once a day, whether a newer version exists — and only tell you. The app never installs anything, and does not hold the permission that would let it.
Night Drop is free software (AGPL-3.0-or-later) and built to be reproducible: anyone can rebuild the release from source and confirm it matches, byte for byte.
Versions
Although APK downloads are available below to give you the choice, you should be aware that by installing that way you will not receive update notifications and it's a less secure way to download. We recommend that you install the F-Droid client and use that.
Download F-Droid
-
x86_64
This version requires Android 7.0 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
detect screen captures of app windows
This app will get notified when a screenshot is taken while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "specialUse"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "specialUse"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
-
app.nightdrop.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
46 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
-
arm64-v8a
This version requires Android 7.0 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
detect screen captures of app windows
This app will get notified when a screenshot is taken while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "specialUse"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "specialUse"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
-
app.nightdrop.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
43 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
-
armeabi-v7a
This version requires Android 7.0 or newer.
It is built and signed by the original developer, and guaranteed to correspond to this source tarball.
Permissions
-
view network connections
Allows the app to view information about network connections such as which networks exist and are connected.
-
take pictures and videos
This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera while the app is in use.
-
detect screen captures of app windows
This app will get notified when a screenshot is taken while the app is in use.
-
run foreground service
Allows the app to make use of foreground services.
-
run foreground service with the type "specialUse"
Allows the app to make use of foreground services with the type "specialUse"
-
have full network access
Allows the app to create network sockets and use custom network protocols. The browser and other applications provide means to send data to the internet, so this permission is not required to send data to the internet.
-
show notifications
Allows the app to show notifications
-
control vibration
Allows the app to control the vibrator.
-
prevent phone from sleeping
Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
-
app.nightdrop.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION
Download APK
34 MiB
PGP Signature
|
Build Log
