Exactly three years ago, on December 12, 2012, the first version of Threema was released to Apple's App Store. A lot has changed since, both feature-wise and regarding the look and feel. Threema has become the best-selling secure instant messenger in Europe and received numerous awards and accolades. But one thing hasn’t changed: Our mission to provide the best secure messenger that effectively protects the privacy while remaining an independent company that is committed only to its users.

Celebrating Threema's 3rd anniversary, the app is available for half the regular price this Saturday, December 12.

Download Threema now: go to the app store

Give Threema away: How to

Tell your friends about the special offer: via email

The second year in a row, Threema was named best selling iPhone app in Germany by Apple in their annual “Best of 2015” list. This confirms once again the continuing popularity of the successful secure instant messenger. It is good to see that more and more people care about their privacy. We’re very pleased about this recognition and would like to thank all our loyal users for their continued support.

The current update of our app for iOS (version 2.5.0) now supports Apple’s new 3D Touch technology introduced with the new iPhone 6s and 6s plus models. This new feature makes Threema even faster and easier to use. Further improvements concern VoiceOver and voice messages along with various bug fixes.

More detail about the changes: What’s new.

2015 was an exciting year for Threema and made us the most successful privacy-protecting instant messenger in the world.

Threema for Android has improved both visually and feature-wise this year. Threema was one of the first important apps to feature a Material Design UI, and we supported Android Wear and Android Auto from early on. Google Play now rewards our efforts by placing Threema on its prestigious roster of best Android apps of 2015.

We’re very proud of what we have achieved, and we have big plans for next year.

Now you can show support for your favorite messenger, look sharp and make sharing your Threema ID a snap all at once.

The new Threema Fan Shop offers a wide range of Threema gear, and, what’s more, many of the items can be customized with your Threema ID: You can print your Threema ID as a QR code on a mug, drawstring bag, T-shirt, sweatshirt or a hoodie. (Of course, you can also go the classic, non-personalized route.) Apparel is available for men, women and even for the little ones, and many of the accessories make great gifts. Check out the Fan Shop!

When it comes to an app's usability and user experience, small changes can make a big difference. At first sight, you might not notice all adjustments we made in the current version (2.4.3) for iOS.

The most obvious changes concern groups: The process of creating a group has been simplified and is now much more intuitive. Group management has been generally improved, now you can see all your groups at a glance as they are listed separately in the contact list.

This update also contains design enhancements. For example, the chat list and contact's detail view have been revised. Threema provides a new option to disable push notifications per contact. Many other improvements are waiting to be discovered.

Read the full release notes here.

We are convinced that Threema currently is the most secure mobile instant messenger on the market. A well-respected Swiss IT research lab has put Threema to the acid test. The result confirms the quality and security of our system across the board: “We confirm the quality of the system as claimed by Threema in their public specification”. All security-relevant aspects within the areas server, apps (Android and iOS) and Gateway were examined. For its thorough investigation, the auditing agency was granted full access to Threema app's source code as well as the servers, and our developer team provided any assistance needed.

Two of Threema's main promises are: The whole communication – including group chats, media, files and status messages – is end-to-end encrypted. Threema is designed to limit users' data track to a bare minimum (e.g., groups and contact lists are handled on users' devices instead of our servers). Both of these assertions were confirmed by the audit. Furthermore, the auditing agency attests in its report:

• Threema's concepts meet the requirements for truly secure and trustworthy messaging.
• The application of the encryption is correct and implemented as documented by Threema.
• The used protocols are free of vulnerabilities.
• The app's local data is stored in a safe and secure manner.
• The server components only store data that is absolutely necessary for message delivery.
• The servers are located in Switzerland.

Supplementing our comprehensive Cryptography Whitepaper, we hope that this security audit increases transparency and trust towards Threema further. The good result encourages us to remain true to our principles, and we will keep improving Threema by making it even more secure, user-friendly and feature-rich.

Read a summary of the audit report here.

Good news for those of you who use Drupe: The contact app now integrates with your favorite messenger.

If you don't know Drupe yet: It’s a clever app that brings contacts and communication apps together – literally, on your screen. It lists your contacts on the left-hand side and the available communications apps (now including Threema) on the right side. With one swipe, you can start a conversation by simply moving a contact onto your preferred communication app.

Check out Drupe in the Google Play Store.

Threema for Android gets another update. It now supports the new permission system introduced with the brand new Android 6.0 «Marshmallow» release. This feature gives Threema users full control over which permissions they want to grant. In fact, basic usage of Threema is now possible without enabling any of the runtime permissions. The update also includes many small improvements and bug fixes and adds a beautifully designed wallpaper.

All improvements and changes of Version 2.52: What’s new

An update of Threema for the Windows Phone platform is now available. Version 1.4.2 includes:

• Landscape mode for chats
• Configurable message text size
• Additional privacy settings
• Completely delete Threema ID and data on device
• Bug fixes and many improvements

Threema gets better with every update. This time, the improvements mainly concern design and usability, but some new functionality has been added, too.

With version 2.5 for Android, users can choose between a light and a dark theme (to switch, go to settings / appearance). The new dark theme not only looks sleek and elegant, it also helps preserving battery life on devices with AMOLED displays.

Other additions and improvements include: storage management for messages, media and files; multi-select, multi-delete and multi-forward messages in chat; advanced image editing before sending (crop, rotate); and a new location chooser.

Read the full release notes here: What’s new

Threema Gateway got more versatile. You can now send and receive images and files of any type up to 20 MB. This gives organizations and enterprises alike a plethora of new use cases to communicate with their customers, employees or other stakeholders and receive data from mobile users or field personnel - instantly and in a safe and secure way.

These new message types are exclusively supported in end-to-end mode. You find the new SDK (version 1.1.0) and modified documentation of the API here or on GitHub.

Threema for Windows Phone gets a new update that focuses on fixing bugs and improving the usability.

For instance, the group administration has been enhanced. You can now remove members from a group. Furthermore, the new version enables you to switch between a light and a dark theme. A small but often requested new feature is the recognition of email addresses, phone numbers and URLs as hyperlinks. Various bug fixes and stability improvements complete the update 1.3.1 for Windows Phone.

All improvements and changes are listed here: What’s new

We deeply regret that on Thursday, July 30, some of our customers were unable to use Threema in the usual way. Two unfortunate circumstances beyond our control led to these failures. In the interest of transparency, we would like to briefly explain the causes. We apologize to all Threema users for the inconvenience.

Issues with Threema 2.4.0 under iOS 7 and older

Threema version 2.4.0 was tested by us under iOS 7, 6 and 5, and worked fine using the available distribution methods for beta testing under these older iOS versions (i.e. installation via Xcode or AdHoc). However, it seems that the repacking/resigning that the App Store performs for distribution broke the binary and made it impossible to launch on iOS 7. Unfortunately this could not be verified before release, as Apple's official beta testing solution in the App Store, TestFlight, only works on iOS 8. We have submitted another update (2.4.1) on Thursday to fix the problem, which is currently waiting for review by Apple.

Network outage on July 30th

On July 30th, the Threema servers were unreachable for most users between approximately 10:10 and 12:30 CEST, except for a small percentage of users whose ISP had a direct route (peering) with our colocation provider nine.ch. The reason was a fiber cut that brought three data centers offline and destroyed the otherwise redundant uplinks. For details, please see https://status.nine.ch/en/messages/471. Threema’s infrastructure was up and running all the time, but unfortunately partly unreachable due to this network outage.

Securely send a file of any format to other Threema users. For example animated GIFs, music files, Office documents or PDFs (max. file size 20MB). This new feature is now also available for iOS.

The new version 2.4 for iOS also support group chats with up to 30 members. All improvements and changes in the new release: What’s new