I think this is fine for Merlinux’s suite of first-party clients, but I like many of Deltatouch’s UI differences. And Arcanechat is often used to test new UI elements. An advantage of a standards-based ecosystem is freedom to change the UI and still interoperate.
I would even like to see Chatmail clients that do not use the Deltacore (the chatmail/core software from Merlinux), partly as it would remove some of my adoption blockers. Unfortunately this is currently a bit difficult as the Chatmail standard has drifted a bit software-defined, but it is being done; Deltachat is standards-based and interop is supported in principle.
It is also possible to use non-Chatmail clients like K9 to communicate with Chatmail clients.
Nothing against a standarized client suite, but also having UI diversity is good!
The only adoption blocker for me was one person that “just doesn’t want another app”. The entire rest of the group downloaded and is using but she is just like “no, f apps” lol.
In a lot of ways, Delta Chat is built for people that hate “apps”. No account creation needed, super minimal app size (>60MB).
Nonetheless this is where we are. The “app” is dying. Best thing to do is probably start focusing on chatmail protocol itself. Promote the SDK for anything / everything. As apps die, protocols still thrive.
In terms of things that kill usage after adoption though, it’s just like 20 different UX things. I’d call them “Papercuts”. Like why is a laughing face not in the quick react emoji list? We like to have fun up in here. Stuff like that. Needs user testing, frankly. Find randoms and get them to record themselves using the app for the first time and saying their thoughts out loud.
When I onboarded a few friends recently, they both agreed that DC was like Kik messenger. Meaning, “old school”, I guess. I think they kinda liked the throwback feeling, maybe leaning into that would be good. But ultimately I’m not sure how relevant the “3rd party messaging app” is in 2026 when RCS and iMessage are starting to play nice finally.
@Low Your app concern could be solved in multiple ways. One would be to be able to create a group in a way that maintained compatibility with other, existing apps such as email and mailing lists, but only provide enhanced experiences for DC users instead of locking others out (akin to progressive enhancement in web development).
If this would not be feasible with features built into DC itself, it could still be worked around with a hosted bridge/relay bot that interfaced with encrypted groups for you, not unlike what is described here for another purpose:
Another alternative would be a lightweight web app:
Older people might be surprised that Zoomers especially love email. It feels very personal for them. Like something from an older, more sane time. A lot of new indie apps try to recreate the calm feeling of email.
So I think leaning into that email aspect could be really cool actually. That used to be a major selling point of DC for me. But didn’t Chatmail get rid of email compatibility? How would it work?
In any case, it might not be a solvable problem. The stubborn friend that I described just only wants to use iOS texting. I think they just hate their phone and don’t want to get sucked into using it beyond its basic functions. Which is another zoomer trait tbh. Disliking the smartphone and desiring a more simple existence.
Chatmail is specialized e-mail. The chatmail/relay codebase requires all mails be encrypted. Deltacore clients (Deltachat, Deltatouch, Parla… all use chatmail/core as a backend) will silently drop mails that don’t meet specific standards, which means that if you are using another mailclient you have to have a very specific configuration to interoperate. That config is currently defined by the Deltacore software, since it is used in all current Chatmail clients. Developing non-Deltacore Chatmail clients requires formalizing this standard. But any mailclient meeting this standard should interoperate fine.
All members have equal rights — anyone can modify settings, remove others, or destroy the whole group in seconds. Worse, this can be fully automated: an entire group can be wiped out in under 30 seconds with zero recovery. Groups are unsafe, fragile, and practically unusable.
Solution:
Add a user‑selectable permission mode: only Creator/Admins can manage settings & members; others only read & chat.
- 100% user‑controlled — users decide whether to enable it or keep full equality.
- Server‑side unchanged — logic runs locally on client, no extra complexity.
Why:
Fixes a fatal flaw, protects all history & value, fits decentralization perfectly, zero burden for those who don’t need it.
Groups are usable in many cases, but I also consider group moderation very important. For example, I know that semester groups are common at universities these days. These are essentially semi-public groups with many members, often 200+. Moderation is simply necessary in such cases. Unfortunately, DC isn’t currently suited for this.
It’s obviously difficult to convince people to switch from WhatsApp and similar services to DC if they still need those other messengers in their daily lives.
Because DC is decentralized and the groups only exist on individual devices and not on servers, moderation is technically challenging. The best solution would probably be the owner concept, where the founder of a group is also the admin.
If the admin needs to be changed, the group has to be cloned (this is already possible). The cloner would then be the new admin. If multiple admins are needed, this could be implemented using a bot which would be the owner of a group and is controlled by admins. Technically, it would be simpler to just use a shared profile for administration.
Neither deal breakers (especially since replying to a message will break through a notification if someone muted a group). But both add to the delight that makes users want to stick around.
Preview bots are better for this because it does not create meta data on your device. Only the server’s IP is revealed and it should not move much. I think it’s even better than “old school” link previews.
Insane breach of privacy. How was this ever considered viable for anything?
Run your own bot
Antithetical to the core ethos of Delta Chat which is “zero configuration” and “normie friendly”.
Host a bot on a VPS
Only achievable for less than a percent of people. Again, antithetical to DC.
Run a bot on your personal computer (doesn’t need a server)
You’re still exposing the IP of the device it’s hosted on, so it once again defeats the whole purpose.
But I’d like to re-iterate that if you’re sending a link, you’ve already been to the website yourself. So what is the issue here? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills lol.