baud
Get baud
Built on the sovereign network

Talk directly
to your friends.

baud sends your messages straight from your phone to theirs. No servers in between. No account. No phone number. Free.

Download for Mac Get it on iPhone Get it on iPhone Get it on Android
baud comes in your colour.

No data centers.No accounts.No one listening.

Everything you send is end-to-end encrypted, and only your friend can open it. Not us, not advertisers, not anyone who comes asking. Your conversations are nobody else’s business.

Add friends in person.

Scan each other’s code and you’re connected. Nobody can find you any other way: no phone number, no username, no search.

Call them, too.

Voice and video calls go straight between your phones as well, end-to-end encrypted. Nobody else is on the line.

Your friends have your back.

If Ana’s phone is off, a friend you both trust holds your message on their Mac, sealed so only Ana can open it, and hands it over the moment she’s back.

Get baud.

Free on iPhone, Mac and Android. Your own devices stay in sync, straight from one to the other.

iPhoneiOS 17 or later · beta on TestFlight Get the beta MacmacOS 14 or later · signed and notarized by Apple Download AndroidAndroid 8 or later · direct download Get it
What’s new in 0.2.22
  1. 0.2.22Hold a message for your recent reactions, every emoji with a search, and one short menu: Reply, Forward, Copy text, Info, Edit and Delete. A double tap gives your latest reaction. Your messages carry clear ticks: one when a device is holding it for them, two when it’s on their device, filled once it’s read, and Info shows who has it. Mark a chat unread, pin it, mute it for a while or for good, or archive it. Give anyone a nickname only you see, and give people in a group a short label everyone sees. Friends have a page of their own, away from your devices, with a map of everyone sharing where they are and a way out to Apple Maps or Google Maps. Settings come in plain sections, and on the Mac they open in the main window. Replies in a chat sit in the conversation, each quoting what it answers. The Mac now downloads new versions by itself, checks them against baud’s signature, and puts them in place when baud next quits; you can turn that off in Settings ▸ Updates.
  2. 0.2.21Calls keep their echo cancelling and your voice stays loud: a phone whose audio restarted a few times no longer drops to recording without them. The speaker stays where you put it, and lips match words, because each picture waits for its sound. A call shows just their name at the top. Tap a friend, or anyone in a group, for a full page: message or call them, check their safety number, and see their devices and the groups you share. Add people opens at once, and a group shows its people’s faces. Location lives in the + of a chat: send where you are once, as a small map, or share it live for an hour, until tonight or until you stop, with a bar that shows who’s sharing. baud opens straight to your chats, never the name screen. Buttons are bigger, a swipe from the edge goes back, scrolling puts the keyboard away, and the colour picker works on iPhone.
  3. 0.2.20Calls start talking the moment they’re answered: your voice and camera get ready while it rings, and when the phone moves the sound (the speaker, AirPods, a car) the call carries on within a quarter second instead of going quiet. The speaker button works like Signal’s: with AirPods or a car around it lists where the sound can go, and video calls stay in your AirPods. Calls fill the screen and always show their buttons; make one small to use the rest of baud, and on iPhone a video call keeps playing in picture-in-picture when you leave the app. The back camera is no longer mirrored. Messages can disappear: pick 5 minutes to 4 weeks in a chat’s details. Group chats get a details page with their people, a name anyone can change, and Leave at the bottom, which asks first. Hold a reaction to see who gave it, and open your message’s Info to see who has read it. Anything that can’t be undone is red and asks first. A sent message never comes back into the box.
  4. 0.2.19Links you send arrive whole. Messages, Mail and other apps cut baud’s long links short, and whoever opened one was told it wasn’t a baud link. Links are now half the length and made of letters, numbers and dashes alone, which nothing cuts; to open one you need 0.2.19 too. A link in a message is underlined and opens with a tap, and a link that did arrive cut short says so.
  5. 0.2.18The words in the message field sit centred in it on iPhone and Android, and on the Mac the field comes back to one line, centred, after a long message.
  6. 0.2.17baud looks right in any colour you pick, including pure black, which now makes the whole app black in light and dark. White and black sit beside the eight colours. On the Mac, a message’s time and React appear beside it on a hover instead of over it, and a two-finger swipe to the left shows every message’s time, as a drag does on the iPhone. Drop files anywhere on a chat to send them. Pins are gone. The network picture in Settings is now a clear map of your own devices and how each one is reached.
  7. 0.2.16baud wears your colour boldly: solid tones of it everywhere, nothing washed out, and in dark mode your colour stays bright on your own messages. Every message you send says where it is with a mark that moves: a ring that turns while it’s on its way, a check while a friend’s device holds it, two once it’s delivered. You can see at a glance who’s online and how you reach them, and when someone’s typing. Video calls go up to 1080p at 60 frames a second when both of you have the connection for it, find the best your connection carries within a few seconds, and recover from a lost packet without freezing the picture. Android gets the same new look.
  8. 0.2.15Adding a friend works in many more places. When a friend’s link can’t reach them, baud turns it around: it makes an answer for you to send back, or for them to scan, and when they open it, you meet. A friend who goes offline shows as offline within a minute. Your devices on the same Wi-Fi talk over it directly, even with a VPN like Tailscale on, and a friend you reach directly takes less background radio. A friend reached through another friend’s device shows that, not Unreachable, and the moment a connection goes direct, it says so.
  9. 0.2.14Share where you are with the people in a chat, for an hour, until the end of the day or until you stop. It goes straight to them, sealed like a message, and nowhere else. baud now takes on the colour you pick: the whole app, deep and lit, in light and dark. Between friends who both have IPv6, baud talks over it directly. It keeps each friend in reach with about half the radio traffic it used before, and when the path to a friend dies under you, it finds another within two seconds. A phone woken for a call stays for it, and a ring that drops rings again.
  10. 0.2.13A sleeping iPhone wakes for your messages and calls. When a friend’s message or call can’t reach your phone, their device asks Apple to wake it through baud’s wake relay, which never sees the message or who sent it, and keeps nothing. Your phone then fetches the message straight from them. Call audio recovers on its own when the speaker, AirPods or another call changes things mid-call.
  11. 0.2.12baud is on Android. Messages find another way in seconds when a device on their path goes quiet, instead of waiting twenty, and a burst of messages to a friend who’s away all reach the device carrying them. Safety numbers now match on both sides when you compare them.
  12. 0.2.11Sturdier: a fault deep in the network can no longer take baud down, and one that happens is recorded so it can be fixed.
  13. 0.2.10A call ends on both sides within seconds when one side drops, freezes or hangs up without a network, never leaving anyone in a call alone. After someone changes networks, calls and messages find their new address at once instead of timing out.
  14. 0.2.9Calls have sound: the audio starts whatever your Mac or iPhone is set to, and a call that can’t start says why, on both sides. A message only counts as sent once it’s there, so nothing is lost on a dying connection. Friends can add you while your phone sleeps, through your Mac. baud asks for notifications at once, and your Mac opens it at login.
  15. 0.2.8Notifications: new messages and missed calls on your lock screen and your Mac, with your friend’s photo. On iPhone, baud checks in the background whenever iOS allows. Calls to an iPhone ring instead of being declined. A Mac carrying messages for friends no longer grinds to a halt, so messages don’t wait for a restart, and it keeps carrying with its window closed.
  16. 0.2.7Voice and video calls, straight between you. baud reaches friends in more places: over IPv6, through most home routers, and with an introduction from a friend you share. Add your photo when you set up. Fixes an iPhone crash and slow sending.
  17. 0.2.6Your iPhone shows Online too, and friends can add you from anywhere. A clearer status, and a phone joins its Mac on the first try.
  18. 0.2.5Your devices stay in sync, and the status says how you’re connected.
  19. 0.2.4Your Mac at home becomes the meeting place when your router allows it.