Knit

Knit is a messenger that works with no internet, no cell service, and no accounts. It connects directly to the phones around you over Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth, passing messages device to device.

When you send a message, nearby phones receive it and pass it onward to the phones around them — so your words hop across a crowd, a building, or a campsite, far past your own range. The more people using Knit nearby, the further it travels.

WHY KNIT
• No internet or mobile data required
• No account, phone number, or email to sign up
• No central server — nothing to shut down, monitor, or leak
• No ads, tracking, analytics, or Google Play Services
• Free software — anyone can read what the app does

PERFECT FOR
• Festivals and crowded venues where signal dies
• Travel, flights, ships, camping, and the backcountry
• Power outages and emergencies when networks fail

PRIVATE BY DESIGN
Direct and group chats are end-to-end encrypted. Each message is sealed so only the people in it can read it — every phone that carries it onward, and every relay, sees only ciphertext. Keys are generated on your device, protected by hardware-backed Android security. Confirm who you're talking to with a safety number or a QR scan.

ABOUT THE PERMISSIONS
Knit asks for nearby-devices (location before Android 13) as Android needs it to find peers over Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth LE and reach a paired radio. Location is read only when you tap Send location. INTERNET is declared because Android counts the local Wi-Fi Aware socket as network access, and because relays and link previews use it once switched on. No account, no backend: a fresh install makes no network calls.

FREE SOFTWARE
Knit is released under the GNU General Public License v3 or later; the full source is at github.com/getknit/knit.

FEATURES
• Public "Nearby" room to broadcast to everyone in range
• Private 1:1 messages (end-to-end encrypted)
• Multi-member groups (end-to-end encrypted)
• Quoted replies, emoji reactions, and @-mentions
• Image sharing, including GIFs
• Voice notes, files of any type, and big files phone to phone over Wi-Fi
• Search every chat, contact, and message
• Encrypted backup for a new phone
• Store-and-forward: messages wait until someone is back in range
• Add a contact from a link when you're too far apart to scan
• Optional Meshtastic LoRa radio for far longer range (see below)
• Optional Internet relays, off until you turn them on (see below)
• Share the app itself to a nearby phone, no app store needed
• Material 3, dark mode, and Material You dynamic colors

SAFER SPACES
On-device filtering screens out abusive text and explicit images, offline, nothing sent anywhere. Sensitive content is blurred behind a tap to reveal, and any sender is one tap from blocked.

Knit is funded by tips and sells nothing. Tip at ko-fi.com/knit, liberapay.com/zaventh or github.com/sponsors/getknit.

HOW IT WORKS
Knit runs Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth Low Energy at once, so it works on phones with only one. Best allowed to run in the background. Requires Android 10 or newer.

OPTIONAL LONG-RANGE RADIO
Pair a Meshtastic LoRa radio over Bluetooth and the Nearby room and your direct messages ride it too, kilometres instead of metres, still with no internet or account. The radio is separate hardware you set up once; Knit works fully without one.

OPTIONAL INTERNET RELAYS
To reach a contact who is never in radio range, switch on Internet relays: Knit parks a sealed copy on a small relay server, which hands it over the next time their phone connects. Off until you turn it on, behind a one-time disclosure of what a relay can see — your IP address, when you send, roughly how much — and cannot: your messages, who you talk to, or who is in a group. Choose your relays or run your own; both are public.

Note: with no radio paired and relays off, Knit reaches people nearby, or the crowd between you. The public Nearby room is unencrypted by design — no fixed set of recipients — and is never uploaded.

Bluetooth that reaches farther, and photos and files that cross the mesh faster

Phones now find each other over Bluetooth from farther apart. When a connection drifts toward the edge of
range, it switches to Bluetooth's long-range mode to stay up, and a phone that loses its last connection
keeps looking at full speed for three minutes. Both phones need the long-range mode, so iPhones and phones
without it connect as before.

Photos, voice messages and files now cost nearby phones fewer copies.