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Anonymous chats

An AChat room is a URL: anyone with the chat ID can open achat.aoneahsan.com/c/<id> and join, with no account and no identity attached to their messages. This page covers how the core anonymous-chat experience behaves.

Chat IDs​

The chat ID is the room's address and its access key.

  • Format: 8–20 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens (a–z, 0–9, -).
  • Generated IDs are random and 12–15 characters long — long enough to be hard to guess.
  • Custom IDs let you use a memorable name, but a memorable open chat is also a guessable one. For anything sensitive, set a password or use a generated ID.

Identity (or the lack of it)​

AChat does not ask who you are. Each participant gets a client-side anonymous identity used only to render "who sent what" within the room. You can set a display name and avatar for a friendlier UI, but:

  • There is no account requirement to chat.
  • Even if you optionally sign in (to keep chats), your account is never linked to message authorship — sign-in is for reservations, not attribution.

Presence​

When others are in the room, AChat shows lightweight presence (who is currently active / typing). Presence records carry the same 10-day TTL as everything else and are best-effort, not a guarantee of who is watching.

Sharing a room​

Use the in-app Share action to distribute the room:

  • On the web: an in-app share modal with a social grid (X, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Telegram, Reddit, Email) plus a click-to-copy link.
  • On Android: the native OS share sheet.

You can also share a QR code for the room, and there is a one-link copy for quick pasting. Only the public chat URL is ever shared — never message contents.

Recents​

AChat remembers rooms you have recently visited on this device (locally, via Capacitor Preferences) so you can hop back in. Clearing them is local and does not affect anyone else.

Honest limits​

  • Open (no-password) chats are not private. Anyone with the ID can read the whole history until it expires.
  • Presence and identity are client-side. They make the UI friendly; they are not a security boundary.
  • Rooms are ephemeral. Messages and files auto-delete about 10 days after they are sent. To persist a room, see Keep chats & accounts.