X launches Chat, its new encrypted DMs

X has revealed Chat, an encrypted upgrade to the platform’s direct messaging service. It also includes support for video and voice calls, disappearing messages, and file sharing.

The company announced Chat on Friday, and it’s available now on iOS and the web, with an Android version coming “soon.” It replaces X’s existing messaging system, though your old messages should be carried across.

X says that Chat supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for both messages and files, though a support page notes that this doesn’t cover message metadata — such as who received it, or when it was sent. There’s also no protection against man-in-the-middle attacks, the company admitting that if “a malicious insider or X itself” compromised an encrypted conversation, there would be no way for users to know, though ways to verify message authenticity and device identity are coming.

Other privacy features include disappearing messages, which can be set to automatically delete after a set period of time, and the options to either receive a notification when a chat is screenshotted or block screenshots entirely. Messages can be both edited and deleted, and voice and video calls are supported, with voice notes on the way in the future.

X — then Twitter — first introduced encrypted DMs in 2023, before pausing the feature this May while it worked on “improvements.” Those seem to have arrived as Chat.