Use a Dedicated Chat Profile

This page is a service for users still using legacy options.

If you did not get a warning, go for something else, maybe play a game inside Delta Chat :)

Required Steps

The option “Move automatically to DeltaChat Folder” as well as other legacy options will be removed in the next weeks.

To see how the change affects you, already today, do the following steps:

  1. Open Delta Chat, go to Settings → Advanced

  2. Disable “Move automatically to DeltaChat Folder”

If you do not do this explicitly today, this will happen implicitly the next weeks.

Optional Steps

If you are using the email address for chatting only, and not using another email app for that address beside Delta Chat, the following steps are not needed.

Only if you share the same email address for chatting and classic usage, which is discouraged since some time, the encrypted messages in the Inbox may be annoying.

If so, you should change the profile as follows:

  1. Open Delta Chat, go to Settings → Advanced → Relays

  2. Tap Add Relay

  3. Go to https://chatmail.at/relays, and select one of the relays shown there

  4. Scan the QR code shown on the relay’s website

    • If you cannot scan, right click or long tap the QR code, select “Copy Link” and paste that to the scanner window

  5. Tap the newly added relay so that it becomes Default

Then, continue chatting, your contacts will learn the new relay over time - until then, you are still reachable on the old email address.

Some weeks later, you can remove the old email address, which will then stop cluttering your classic Inbox with encrypted messages.

Background

We want Delta Chat users to have a easy, reliable and secure messenger experience.

Using the same email addresses in Delta Chat and in classic email apps was the default in the early years, however, turned out to stand in the way of these goals. E.g. notifications could not be made reliable, onboarding was complex, encrypted messages are annoying in the inbox - and plaintext are not what we want to have in Delta Chat by default.

Also, while we keep on using email technically, this is nothing the average user should care about - similar to other messenger using https under the hood.

Therefore, by default, user get a dedicated, exclusive profile since quite some time and there is no need to enter an email address - let alone a phone number.

Since then, the onboarding is one of the easiest around - you only need to enter a name 🎉

Finally removing the legacy options is the next logical step - it makes the app clearer and easier to support, freeing up developer mind space to to much more impactful things - as multi relay, channels and calls. And, of course fixing bugs, making Delta Chat a truely stable experience