Tag is a group messenger built around a simple idea: your conversations belong to you and the people in them — not to a company, a server, or an account you had to create first.
Download TagNo sign-up. No phone number. Scan a QR code or tap a link — you're in the conversation.
Messages live only on participants' devices. Leave the group — everything is gone, instantly.
Offline participants catch up automatically. When the internet itself is gone, nearby devices communicate over Bluetooth or local WiFi.
Getting started
Most messaging apps ask you to hand over a phone number or create an account before you can say a word to anyone. Tag skips all of that.
Give it a name, pick a color. Tag generates a join link automatically — no server setup, no invite lists, no admin account required.
Send the link however you like — a text, an email, show it on screen as a QR code. Anyone who taps it or scans it joins immediately. The link is both the invitation and the key to the conversation. Optionally protect it with a password so that a forwarded or intercepted link is useless without it.
Leaving wipes your copy of the conversation — messages, your name, everything. No trace remains on your device and nothing is kept on a server. The group lives only as long as someone stays in it.
Privacy
Many messaging apps collect metadata even when messages are encrypted — who you talked to, when, how often. Tag was designed to make that information unavailable in the first place.
Tag never asks for your name, phone number, or email address. Each group gives you a fresh identity you choose at join time — nothing connects your conversations together, across groups or over time.
Messages are locked on your device before they go anywhere. Servers in the middle see only scrambled data they cannot open. Only the people in the conversation can read what was said.
Add a password when creating a group. Anyone who receives the link still can't enter without it — the password is never stored anywhere, not even on your device. A forwarded or intercepted link is useless on its own.
Even encrypted messages can leak information through how large they are. Tag pads every message to a uniform size before sending, so an outside observer can't infer what you said from the size of the packet.
When you leave a group, your device immediately wipes every message, your display name, and all cryptographic keys associated with that group. No archive, no backup, no recovery path — by design.
No email address. No phone number. No device fingerprint. No location. No usage history across groups. Uninstall and reinstall — the app has no record you've ever used it.
Messages stored on your device are encrypted at the hardware level — not just protected by your screen lock, but cryptographically inaccessible without your device credentials.
Group creators can remove a participant at any time by issuing a new link that excludes them. Everyone else migrates automatically — no disruption to the conversation.
Resilience
Tag was built around a question that most messaging apps don't ask: what happens when the infrastructure you normally depend on isn't there?
If you're away when a message is sent, Tag holds it — encrypted — on the relay server for up to 30 days. When you reconnect, it arrives automatically. No one needs to resend anything.
Come back to a group after time away and Tag quietly fills in what you missed directly from other participants' devices. No button to tap, no manual sync required.
When everyone is online, messages travel directly between devices — no server reading what passes through, and no single point of failure that can take the conversation down.
When servers are unreachable — during outages, in remote areas, in emergencies — devices within range connect over Bluetooth or local WiFi and keep messaging. Joining a group via QR code requires no network connection at all.
Tag uses a mesh network so the app stays responsive in groups of hundreds. Each device maintains only a small number of connections — messages travel across the group without any single device carrying the full load.
At a glance
A direct comparison on the things that matter most when privacy and reliability are on the line.
| Feature | Tag | Typical messenger |
|---|---|---|
| Requires an account or phone number | Never | Almost always |
| Messages stored on company servers | No — devices only | Usually yes |
| Identity tied across all conversations | No — fresh per group | Yes — one account, one profile |
| Leaving removes all traces | Completely and immediately | Typically archived server-side |
| Works when recipients are offline | Yes — encrypted relay | Depends on servers staying up |
| Works without any internet connection | Yes — Bluetooth & local WiFi | No |
| Password-protected invite links | Yes | No |
| Run on your own servers | Yes — API is open | Rarely |
Your infrastructure
Tag works out of the box with no configuration. But if you want to control every part of the infrastructure — you can.
The server software is open. Run your own relay and signaling servers and keep every byte inside infrastructure you control. Any server that implements the published API works with the app.
Each group carries its own server configuration embedded in the join link. A personal group, a work group, and a public group can each use completely different servers — all from the same app.
The server that helps devices find each other and the server that holds messages for offline participants are separate. Neither has the complete picture of who said what to whom — and users can run each independently.
Tag's default servers are operated by the Tag team — not by any large cloud platform. They're there so you can get started without configuration. You are never required to use them.
The long-term goal is to remove the need for any central server entirely, replacing the relay with a distributed network where no single operator can observe even metadata.