Help

Getting started

Setup

A new install opens on Setup. The first screen offers two ways through it:

Manual still asks for a name, because a profile without one has nothing to put on a message.

The interview walks through the things every user should decide once. Ten steps:

  1. Welcome, which says what CHANNEL is.
  2. Your name, the name people will see.
  3. Fetch new messages: Push, Fetch or On Demand. The notification permission is asked here, after the question has been explained.
  4. How messages travel: the four paths, all on to start with.
  5. Lock CHANNEL: Face ID, an app PIN, a distress code.
  6. Being found: a phone number or an email address of your own, verified.
  7. Calls: which apps this phone hands a call to.
  8. AI, if you want it, on your own key.
  9. Maps: which map app a location opens in.
  10. Done.

Only two of them are required: your name, and Fetch new messages. Until the name is typed, Continue stays greyed out. Every step after those two carries Skip This, and once both required steps are behind you, Finish Later appears in the bar.

Finish Later closes the interview and keeps your place. Open the app again and Setup resumes on the step you left, not at the beginning. Settings › Setup runs the whole thing again at any time, from the top, with your answers kept.

Setup is wordier than Settings on purpose, but it uses the same words for the same switches, so what you set here is what you will find later.

If you have used CHANNEL before, you are never dropped into Setup. It is for a phone that has just installed the app.

Profiles

A profile is a separate identity: its own keys, its own contacts, its own conversations. Two profiles on one phone share nothing unless you choose to see their conversations in one list (Settings › Lock › Merge Profiles). Nobody you talk to can tell that two profiles share a phone.

Create one from Settings › Profiles. The New Profile sheet asks the same question the first screen does, under Set Up: Interview walks through those questions for this profile, and Manual creates it and leaves everything at its default. The tenth profile is asked the same way the first one was.

A new profile can start as a copy of an existing one, settings only. Keys, contacts, messages and verification are never copied, because a profile that shared them would not be a separate identity.

Your card

Your card is the name and picture contacts see, and it is sent to them directly, sealed, when you pair. It is never uploaded anywhere. Change it under Contacts › This is me.

Choose a name you are happy for other people to read. Everyone you pair with sees it, whichever of you wrote first, and when you write to somebody new it is the name their phone offers them for you before they have met you. If you change it later, the new one goes out to everyone you are already paired with. A nickname you meant only for yourself is not private once you have paired with anybody.

Your first contact

There are two ways to reach somebody:

  1. In person: one phone shows its QR code, the other scans it. See Pairing.
  2. By a number or address they have verified, or by their handle: write to them. The message waits, and CHANNEL leaves an invitation at that number or address. They see it the next time their phone checks and accept it with a name of their choosing. Nothing tells you whether the number is even in use. See Being found.

CHANNEL never uploads contacts. Contacts › Phone can show your phone's own address book so you can find somebody without retyping them, and that list is read only while the tab is open, is never saved, and never leaves the phone. Only a person you choose to import becomes a CHANNEL contact.

Long press for options

Lists have no buttons on the rows. The menu is under a long press, on both phones.

The first time this matters, a hint says so once and then retires itself. Settings › Hints turns hints off everywhere.

English is the reference text; any translation is a convenience. Help is stored on this phone and never contacts anyone.