Locked on your phone.
Open only on theirs.

Decide whether fomo shares app activity with Meta to measure our own ads: Settings → Blocked Ads on iPhone, Settings → Ads on Android. In the EU, UK and Switzerland it’s off until you agree. Meta never gets your name, email or phone number.

Your date of birth now lives in a private part of your account. Other people can’t see it; fomo uses it only to confirm you’re 18 or older.

“Child safety” is now the first reason when you report a post, Flik, comment or Thought, and those reports go to the top of our review queue.

If you delete your account, you have 30 days to change your mind: sign back in and you can restore it. Now on Android too.

The Terms of Service and Privacy Policy in the app now come straight from fomocircles.com, so you always read the latest version, even offline. On the website, one search box finds anything in either.

Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted when you’re both on fomo 8.5 or later: the words, the photos, the voice memos and the replies. They’re locked on your phone and unlocked only on theirs. Encrypted chats say so at the top.

Group chats with up to 100 members can be end-to-end encrypted, polls included: the questions and options of polls are encrypted, the votes are not.

In private circles with up to 150 members, the chat and the posts, Fliks and comments shared to it can be end-to-end encrypted when encryption is turned on, including scheduled posts. New members can also see the circle’s posts from before they joined; someone removed can’t open what’s shared after they leave.

We can’t scan encrypted photos and videos. Your phone checks them itself before they’re posted, using fomo’s own on-device model (and on iPhone, Apple’s sensitive content check too when it’s turned on), and if they look sensitive, they’re blurred for viewers until tapped. The check runs on your phone; we see only its result, never the photo.

Public circles and the FOMO circle, because anyone can join them, and any post shared to a public circle. Group chats with more than 100 members and circles with more than 150 members. Your profile, and profile and circle photos. Messages, posts, Thoughts and comments sent before encryption was turned on for that chat or circle. A post or Thought shared to more than 5 circles at once. A post or Flik your phone couldn’t check for sensitive content before sending, and a post you choose to send without encryption after it failed to send. Calls in a chat, group or circle that isn’t encrypted, and group-chat and circle calls that don’t say they’re end-to-end encrypted (they’re still encrypted in transit). And anything sent with an older version of fomo.

Who is in which chat or circle. Who sent a message or post to whom, and when. Emoji reactions. Who called whom, who joined a group or circle call, when and for how long, and whether each person’s microphone and camera were on. That something is encrypted. The size of files and the length of videos. Poll votes: who voted for which option. Who you mentioned or tagged (not what you wrote). Read and delivery receipts, likes, saves, view lists and comment counts. Joins and leaves in a chat or circle. We need this to deliver what you send and to show your chats and feeds.

Calls in an encrypted 1-on-1 chat are end-to-end encrypted, and the call says so. An older version of fomo isn’t given an unencrypted call in an encrypted chat: it’s asked to update.

Calls in an encrypted group chat can be end-to-end encrypted when encryption is available for that group, and the call says so. When it is, anyone in the group can decrypt its calls. Someone added during a call can decrypt it from then on, and the call shows a note; someone removed is cut off within seconds.

Calls in a private circle hold up to 12 people, and can be end-to-end encrypted when encryption is available for that circle (the call says so). fomo doesn’t record calls.

If a new device joins a chat after your phone did, the chat tells you, including when it’s a new device on your own account.

In a 1-on-1 chat, fomo checks the devices automatically: a device set up with that person’s encryption PIN or recovery key is confirmed without you doing anything, and the chat warns you if a device joins that fomo can’t confirm. You can also compare a safety number (or scan the other person’s code) yourself.

Checking works for 1-on-1 chats today; key checks for groups and circles come later. And a warning tells you a device was added; it can’t undo what that device already received, so check any warning you see.

To keep your messages when you change phones, you can protect a backup with a PIN or a 64-character recovery key. Your PIN and your recovery key are never sent to us, and we cannot recover either one for you.

We limit wrong guesses: 10 tries, then a 24-hour lock, and the backup is erased after 30 wrong tries.

A PIN can be guessed by someone with access to our systems, including someone who breaks in; a recovery key cannot. For the strongest protection, choose a longer PIN or the recovery key.

The first time you open fomo, one screen shows what it can use and why, before any system prompt. Continue asks for each permission in turn. On Android, Not now asks for nothing. Anything you skip is asked only when you use the feature that needs it.

Start a message and your circles and the people in them are already there, recent chats first. Tap a person to open your chat, tap a circle to open its chat, or add a whole circle to a new group, up to 100 people.