Introduction
AChat (Anonymous Chat AI) is a no-signup, transient chat app: you pick or generate a chat ID, share the link, and talk — and every message and file auto-deletes about 10 days after it is sent. An optional password turns on true end-to-end encryption performed entirely in your browser. There is no registration, no email, and no phone number; opening the link puts you in the room.
The web app lives at achat.aoneahsan.com, is free to use, and is built and maintained by Ahsan Mahmood. An Android build is available on Google Play.
What it does
| Capability | One-line summary |
|---|---|
| Anonymous rooms | Pick or generate a chat ID (8–20 characters), share the URL, and start talking. No account. |
| Optional E2E encryption | Set a password and AChat derives an AES-GCM key in your browser with PBKDF2. Message bodies and file metadata are encrypted client-side. |
| File sharing | Send files up to 10 MB each, 100 MB total per chat, with image previews and a lightbox. |
| Threads & replies | Quote a message or branch a threaded conversation off any message. |
| Groups & communities | Named private group chats, plus public, discoverable communities with best-effort client-side moderation. |
| Embeddable widget | Drop a sandboxed chat into any website as an inline iframe or a floating launcher. |
| Search your chats | Search across the chats you have opened, done entirely on your device — search terms never leave the browser. |
| Delete & archive | Soft-delete messages to a per-chat 30-day Trash, or privately archive a whole chat to your signed-in account. |
| 10-day auto-delete | Firestore TTL removes messages and files about 10 days after they are sent, with lazy file cleanup. |
Who it is for
- Anyone who wants a throwaway chat link — support handoffs, quick coordination, one-off conversations you do not want to keep.
- Privacy-minded users who want client-side encryption without installing anything or trusting a server with their key.
- Site owners who want to embed a lightweight, anonymous chat widget without standing up their own backend.
- Communities that want an open, anonymous, ephemeral public room rather than a permanent, account-gated forum.
What it is not
Honesty matters more than marketing. Some explicit non-claims:
- It has no AI chatbot. Despite the brand name "Anonymous Chat AI", AChat does not include any AI or LLM chat feature — conversations are between real people. The name is historical branding; the accurate description is "anonymous, ephemeral, optionally end-to-end-encrypted chat". See the FAQ.
- Open chats are not private. A chat without a password is readable by anyone who has the chat ID. Privacy comes from the optional password, not from secrecy of the link alone.
- File bytes are not encrypted at rest. On passworded chats only the file URL/metadata is encrypted; the file contents on FilesHub are not. See Security & encryption.
- It is not anonymous against legal process. Standard infrastructure telemetry (IP address, user agent) is processed by Firebase. AChat hides your identity from other participants, not from a court order.
- A built-in admin can moderate open chats. For safety and moderation, an administrator role can enumerate chats and read open ones — but passworded chats stay end-to-end encrypted with no key escrow, and every admin action is logged. See Admin oversight.
- Deletion is "about 10 days", not instant or guaranteed-to-the-minute. Firestore TTL typically removes expired documents within ~24 hours of expiry; FilesHub cleanup is lazy.
How it works in 60 seconds
Read on with the Quick Start, or jump to How AChat works for the data model.