Every update, in plain words

• Chat folders. Sort Home into tabs (All, Chats, Groups and your own folders) in Settings › Chats › Chat folders. You can also hold a chat on Home and choose Add to folder, drag folders into the order you like, and hide the All tab if you don't need it.
• Only on Blackbird: the Secret space. Set your secret pass in Settings › Privacy › Secret space, or tap + on Home › Secret space. Then pull Home down from the top to get in: your secret chats leave the chat list and live there, and the space locks again the moment you leave Blackbird. The pass stays on your phone; Blackbird never sees it.
• Secret chats go further. Secret chats now stay only on this phone, with screenshots and copying blocked. They are never backed up, a disappearing timer is on from the start (1 day, change it in Secret space › Settings), and notifications never show the name or the message. On Android 14 and later, the other person is told if a screenshot is tried.
• Only on Blackbird: a decoy pass, and wipe after 5 wrong tries. Turn them on in Secret space › Settings; both are off until you do. A decoy pass opens an empty Secret space for anyone who forces you to open it, and wiping removes only your secret chats, the rest of Blackbird stays.
• Account backup has its own home. Find it in Settings › Account › Account backup, with when your chats were last locked and how many. Choose what is backed up (all chats, only people, only groups or chats you pick), and see the Google accounts that can bring your chats to a new phone, with Use another Google account and Remove.
• Linking Google shows every step. Settings › Account › Account backup › Google now shows each step while Google's window is open, instead of a spinning sheet. It tells you not to close the app and ends with a clear success screen. If it fails, you see why in plain words and can try again, or use your backup code.
• Group info does more. Open Group info and tap the group's photo or name to change it, or add a description. It also shows who created the group and how active it was this week, and Control center now holds only the admin rules.
• Who can add me to groups. Choose Everyone, People I've chatted with, Only with an invite link or Nobody in Settings › Privacy › Who can add me to groups. Anyone else sends you an invite instead, and sees why before they tap.
• A new "All chats locked" pill. While Blackbird locks your chats, the pill under the tabs counts them, then fills with your theme's colour when every chat is done.
• Fixes. You no longer show as online just because a message or call woke your phone, only when you have Blackbird open. Messages to a phone that was asleep now turn to two ticks once it gets them. Popups lost the square box behind their rounded corners, hold menus never slide under the status bar, the extra lock after every name in the chat list is gone, the message bar matches light themes instead of staying black, join lines say who invited the person, and red buttons in popups are easier to read.

• Every chat is locked. Messages, photos, files, voice notes, reactions and edits are now end-to-end encrypted in every chat, not just Secret Chats. Only your phone and theirs can read them; Blackbird's server stores locked messages it can't open. Your old chat history is locked too, and call setup goes through the lock. Nothing to turn on.
• Groups of up to 200. Tap + on Home › New group, then add people or share an invite link, QR code or group code. Group messages are locked the same way. Owners and admins open Group info › Control center to decide who can post, pin, add people and more, with Open, Calm and Announcements modes.
• Only on Blackbird: group extras. Hold a message › Side talk to reply in a small thread without filling the chat. When someone joins, tap Send welcome pack on the join line to hand them the messages that matter. Admins can open ⋮ › View as member to see the group the way members do, and @mentions ring even when a group is muted.
• Your chats on a new phone. Sign in on the new phone and your old phone asks "Is this you?". Approve it and your locked chats come across. Lost the old phone? Use your backup code from Settings › Chats › Chat backup. Both phones show the same code to compare, so nobody can slip in.
• Disappearing messages. Open a chat › ⋮ › Disappearing messages to clear new messages after 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days. Pick a timer for every new chat in Settings › Chats › Default timer for new chats. In groups, admins decide who can change it.
• Only on Blackbird: one message that disappears. Hold the Send button › Send as disappearing to give just that message 1 minute, 1 hour or 24 hours. In a one-to-one chat the clock starts when they read it.
• Schedule messages. Hold the Send button › Schedule message: in an hour, tonight, tomorrow morning, a time you pick, or when they next come online. It goes on time even if your phone is off, and Blackbird reminds you 5 minutes before so you can send now, change it or stop it.
• Send without sound. Hold the Send button › Send without sound to deliver a message that doesn't ring or vibrate their phone. A small moon shows on it for both of you.
• Polls. Tap 📎 › Poll and ask a question with up to 12 answers, allow more than one choice, end it at a set time or hide who voted for what. Votes move live, and when it ends the result goes into the chat. Only on Blackbird: remind just the people who haven't voted, once a day.
• Blackbird's own style marks. The style pickers in Settings › Appearance show Blackbird's own drawings instead of other apps' logos.

• Swipe the call bar away. During a call, swipe the bar at the top left or right and it tucks into a small tab on the edge of the screen, with their photo and the call time. Drag the tab up, down or to the other side, and tap it to bring the bar back. It stays tucked away until the call ends.
• The call bar sits right under the top bar. On some phones it floated lower, with a gap under the chat's name. Now it sits right below it on every screen.
• No more closing when a call can't start. On some phones Blackbird closed itself when a call failed straight away, for example with no internet. Now it just says the call couldn't start.
• A new look for updates. Big updates now open full screen with what's new up front, regular releases show their best new features with icons, and small fixes stay short. Each one is labelled Major, Release or Patch, and all of them follow your theme.
• Keep reading while it downloads. The update notes scroll while the update downloads, and a Hide button lets you keep chatting while it finishes in the background.
• Update buttons on every phone. On some older versions and smaller screens the Install and Not now buttons could end up off the screen. They are always visible now.

• Get back to your call in one tap. Leave the call screen to read a chat and a bar stays at the top of Blackbird with their name, the call time, mute and end. Tap it to go straight back to the call.
• Calls keep going in a small window. Press Home or Back during a video call and it shrinks into a floating window over your other apps, with mute, swap and end buttons. Tap the window and then the expand button to open the full call again.
• The camera button starts a video call. Tapping the camera at the top of a chat now starts a video call straight away, with your own camera on screen while it rings. Voice and video buttons have new, clearer icons.
• Call waiting. If someone calls while you're already on a call, you hear a soft tone and see who it is. Choose Decline or End & answer. Before, they just heard "busy" and you never knew.
• Control the call from the lock screen. The call notification now has Mute and Speaker buttons, so you don't need to unlock the phone or open the app.
• Headphones and Bluetooth just work. Plug in headphones or connect a Bluetooth headset mid-call and the sound moves there by itself. Long-press the speaker button to pick where the sound plays.
• Turn the phone sideways in a video call to see the other person bigger.
• Saves battery. Your camera pauses while the call is in the background, and the screen only stays on during video calls.
• Fixes: a duplicate name and timer over your own camera in video calls, and missed-call notices when someone called while you were busy.

• Calls now go through. In 5.5.0 every call stopped at "Call failed" before the other phone rang. Fixed on Blackbird's server and in the app.
• One set of call buttons. The top of a chat showed two phone icons, and the extra ones did nothing. Now there is just the voice and video call button.
• Clearer messages when a call can't go through, so you know whether to try again.
• About a third of the size. The update is now about 25 MB instead of 73 MB, so it downloads faster and uses less data.

• Call anyone you chat with. Tap the phone or camera at the top of a chat for a voice or video call. Incoming calls ring full screen, even when the app is closed or the phone is locked, and missed calls show as a notification.
• Encrypted between your two phones. Every call is encrypted from your phone to theirs. Four pictures show on both screens: if they match, nobody else can listen.
• A Calls tab with your call history: missed, incoming and outgoing, voice and video. Tap a call to call back, or remove it from the list.
• Six call styles. Choose how a call rings and looks while you talk in Settings › Calls: Blackbird (the default), Aurora, Classic, Glass, Minimal or Material, each with a live preview. The call screen shows the other person's photo, or their initials on their own colours.
• Only on Blackbird: call-back reminders. Can't talk? Decline with "Call back in 15 min" and Blackbird tells them, then reminds you when it's time, even after a restart. Turn it off in Settings › Calls.
• Who can call me. In Settings › Privacy › Who can reach me, choose Everyone, People I've chatted with (the default) or Nobody. People you blocked can never call you.
• Protect my IP address in calls. Turn it on in Settings › Calls and your calls always go through Blackbird's server, so the other phone never sees your address. People you've never chatted with always get this.
• Low data mode for calls on slow or costly connections, plus your own ringtone and vibration, in Settings › Calls.
• Phone calls come first. A normal phone call puts your Blackbird call on hold, and it carries on when the phone call ends.

• Block anyone. Block from the chat menu, from the person's profile or by long-pressing the chat in your list. Blackbird asks once before blocking or unblocking, and you can delete the chat at the same time. A blocked chat shows "You blocked …" with an Unblock button instead of the message box. The person is not told: their messages look sent to them, with one tick that stays one tick, and never reach you, not even after you unblock.
• Messages from strangers. The first time someone you've never written to messages you, a bar at the top offers Block or It's OK.
• Only on Blackbird: blocking your way. Block for 24 hours, a week or forever, and a timed block ends by itself with a notice. Messages someone sent while blocked wait quietly: read them from Blocked users without them knowing, and when you unblock you choose whether they join the chat. If you want, turn on Settings › Privacy › Tell people I block, and the people you block see that they can't message you (off by default, like other apps).
• Know who's writing. The bar for a first message from a stranger now says when their account was made, and flags brand-new accounts.
• Private notes. Add a note about anyone on their profile that only you can see, next to their nickname, and see when your chat started.
• See other people's profiles. Tap the name at the top of a chat to see their photo, name, @username, bio and last seen, with Message, Mute and Search, shared media, start a secret chat and Block.
• Profile styles. Pick how other people's profiles look: Blackbird, Breeze, Classic or Clean, in Settings › Appearance.
• Nicknames and wallpapers for each chat. Give someone a name only you see, and give any chat its own colour or photo as wallpaper.
• Share links that open the chat. Sharing your profile now sends a link, blackbirdtalk.com/u/yourname. On a phone with Blackbird it opens a chat with you; without it, the page offers the download. If you aren't signed in yet, the chat opens right after you sign in.
• A new QR card, with your photo in the middle and four looks to choose from right on the QR screen. Share it as an image, and scan other people's codes with the camera or from a photo.
• Your name shows on your profile. The Name row shows the name people see instead of "Add", and editing starts from it.
• Settings in the right place. Account (email, password, devices) and Privacy now sit at the top of Settings, one under the other. Privacy has three parts: who can see you (last seen, profile photo, read receipts, typing), who can reach you (blocked people) and this phone (app lock, block screenshots). Block screenshots no longer needs an app lock. All the chat looks moved to Appearance, and haptic feedback moved to Chats.
• Forwarding photos and files works. Forwarding a photo, video or file someone sent you no longer fails, the person in the first chat can still open a photo after you forward it, and deleting one copy no longer breaks the others. Several messages forwarded together arrive all of them, in order.
• No more stuck messages. A message sent while the one before it was still on its way no longer stays on the clock.
• Smoother keyboard. Opening the keyboard in a chat no longer makes the screen stutter, and the emoji panel no longer flashes up big for a moment when you tap the emoji button.
• Emoji in previews. A message that is just one emoji now shows that emoji in the chat list, notifications, replies, search and Saved messages, instead of text like :eye_roll:.
• App lock. After 5 wrong PIN tries the app makes you wait 30 seconds before the next one, and longer after each further miss, even if you close and reopen it.
• Screenshot blocking now also covers menus, pop-ups and sheets, and turning it off takes effect at once. Blackbird's data is no longer copied into Android or Google backups.
• Updates. A downloaded update is still ready to install after Android closes the app in the background, and the installer opens only once.
• Deleting. "This message was deleted" now stays in the chat after you close and reopen it, on both phones, for every kind of message, and you can tap or long-press it to delete it just for you. A deleted sticker shows it in a normal bubble. A message you delete for everyone within 2 minutes of sending still disappears without a trace, whatever it is: text, emoji, photo, sticker or anything else.
• Delete animations. Deleted messages and chats now leave with an animation, and the messages or chats around them slide together to close the gap. Pick one of six in Settings › Appearance › Delete animation, with a live preview: Toss to Bin (the default), Blackbird Pearl Drift, Snap Dust, Quick Shrink, Paper Shred or Simple Fade. It plays for Delete for me, a message deleted for everyone within 2 minutes, a message the other person deletes that way, several messages deleted together and chats deleted from your list. A message that turns into "This message was deleted" just changes in place. If animations are off on your phone, things disappear at once.
• Style names. The looks in Settings are now called by their own names instead of other apps': Breeze, Classic, Clean, Glass and Arcade, next to Blackbird. They look the same as before, and searching Settings for the old names still finds them.
• Quicker menus. Tapping Delete, or anything else in a message menu, the selection bar or a chat menu, opens what comes next straight away instead of waiting for the button's animation, and dialogs fade in quickly. Animations are still there, just shorter.
• Fixes. Search highlights the right words in names and messages with letters like İ. Saved messages open the chat with the right person. A file sent as a document stays a document, also for music. The menu on a message that is still sending offers only Copy. Clearer errors for a name or password that is too long and for a username with characters that aren't allowed. Searching for % or _ no longer matches everything. Online status stays right after a quick reconnect. Changing one privacy switch no longer resets who can see your profile photo.

• Secret Chats. Tap the new-chat button and choose "New secret chat". A secret chat is end-to-end encrypted: each message is locked on your phone and can be unlocked only on theirs. Blackbird's server passes on scrambled data it cannot read, and deletes it as soon as their phone has it. Both of you need this version.
• Only secret chats are end-to-end encrypted. Your normal chats work exactly as before: encrypted on the way to the server and readable on it. Secret chats are opt-in, one at a time, with the people you choose.
• One phone on each side. A secret chat lives only on the phone it was started or accepted on. It is not saved to the cloud, does not open on your other devices, and is gone if you lose the phone, sign out or uninstall. The app warns you before signing out ends one.
• Everything you can send. Text, emoji, replies, photos, videos, files up to 100 MB, voice notes, stickers and GIFs. You can edit your messages and delete them for both of you.
• Verify the other person. Compare a 60-digit security code, or scan the QR code on their phone, to be sure nobody is in the middle. If their code changes (a new phone or a reinstall), the old chat ends and a new request warns you.
• Disappearing messages. Set a secret chat to delete its messages on both phones after 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week.
• Private by default. Notifications for a secret chat only say "New secret message", with no name and no text, even through Google's push service. Screenshots are blocked in secret chats.
• What is protected? Every secret chat has a screen that lists what stays between you two and what the server can still see: that you are talking, when, and roughly how big each message is.
• The emoji picker sits where the keyboard was. It opens at the keyboard's height, the message box stays right above it, and the conversation stays in view.
• Smoother chats. A chat with animated emoji no longer slows the phone down, and chats open noticeably faster.
• Voice notes. Your own voice note plays at once, every time, not only the first time.
• Deleting. A message deleted for everyone within 2 minutes of sending disappears without a trace on both sides, and a deleted message is also taken out of a notification that was already showing. A deleted emoji or voice note no longer leaves a giant or blank bubble.
• Fixes. Several emoji in one message are no longer shown huge. A muted chat stays muted after it is archived, and a timed mute ends on time. A photo whose location can't be removed is not sent. Notifications for two different chats no longer replace each other. The app no longer crashes when it fetches media while offline. The update prompt now opens in full on every screen size and font size, so Install and Not now are always within reach.

The first update since 5.0.3 (5.1.0 was built for testing and never released), so it carries both.

• Every emoji. The picker now has the full Unicode emoji set, around 1,900, in one long scroll with a category bar underneath. Hold a hand or a person to pick a skin tone; the app remembers it. Emoji your phone can't draw are left out, so you never see an empty box.
• Search emoji in English or Hinglish: "happy", "dil", "hasna", "party".
• GIFs. Search and send GIFs from KLIPY in the new GIFs tab.
• Stickers and animated reactions. 20 animated reactions, a sticker tab with favourites, and hold a sticker to see it big before you send it.
• Voice notes. Hold the mic to record; the bubble shows a waveform you can scrub, at 1x, 1.5x or 2x.
• Photos. A new photo picker with albums, an editor to crop, rotate and draw, sets of photos sent as one album, and a real HD quality choice.
• Files. Each file shows its type, opens with one tap, and several can go at once. Every chat has a shared media page.
• Settings. A new home with search, and a Data and storage screen.
• Chats feel quicker. Send and tick motion, typing dots, an unread line, a floating date, swipe actions on the chat list, and a faster reconnect when the network comes back.
• Picker and composer styles. Five looks for each, chosen in Settings.
• You stay signed in. The app used to sign everyone out 30 days after they signed in, however often they used it. Now your session renews while you use the app and only ends after 90 days without opening it at all.
• App lock you can trust. The PIN is now asked on every screen, including a chat opened from a notification. It no longer locks you out in the middle of using the app, and "Forgot your code?" works on Android 7 to 10.
• Sign out a device for real. Signing a phone out from "Where you are signed in" now ends its session at once.
• Privacy. A chat left open in the background no longer sends blue ticks. The next account to sign in on a phone no longer sees the previous account's chat list.
• Fixes. A message that failed to send while the network was flaky no longer stays stuck on the clock after the connection comes back, and messages missed while offline always come back on reconnect. A photo, voice note or sticker with no caption now shows a notification. Set password and Link email in Account work again. After a session lapses, signing in once is enough, and your username is filled in. A photo, voice note or sticker sent while replying now keeps the reply. Emoji with a skin tone no longer split into an emoji and a colour block. GIFs stay still when animations are turned off on your phone.

Every visual choice in Settings now shows you the real thing before you pick — no more picking blind from a list of words.

• Chat bubbles, Message menu, Reply gesture, Saving media, Upload progress, Document icon — each opens a live chat mock with real bubbles, real fonts, real theme colours. Tap a card, watch the chat above change.
• Reply gesture puts direction and feel on the same screen — and every bubble in the preview is actually swipeable, so you can feel the throw and the spring before applying anything.
• Message menu opens the real menu when you tap any bubble in the preview — full-size, in your chosen layout and panel style.
• Themes cards now carry a mini chat sample on each tile — Aesthetic wallpapers show two bubbles in their true accent, Solid palettes show a three-line conversation in the accent you're about to apply.
• Related settings are grouped: swipe direction + feel = one Reply screen; layout + panel = one Menu screen; place + folder + banner = one Saving screen; shape + text size = one Bubbles screen.
• Under the hood: sample text everywhere pulls from one place (SampleCopy), so future previews stay pro-neutral without effort.

Round of fixes across the whole app. Nothing new, everything steadier:

• Sending: messages don't get stuck on a clock or show up twice, replies and photos arrive complete live, edits stop turning into new messages on rotation.
• Receiving: new-chat messages appear in the list without a manual refresh, notifications open the right conversation, the group summary opens the chat list.
• Media: photos and videos save to Downloads (broken before), video previews blur properly, downloads show "3.2 / 12.4 MB" progress, forwarding a photo actually forwards the photo.
• Avatars: photos don't flicker on scroll, half-loaded DPs are gone, the chat header now shows the peer's photo, changing your avatar frees the old one from storage.
• Security & account: app lock can't be skipped by closing the app, "Immediately" auto-lock actually locks immediately, signing out fully clears the previous account.
• Files: documents keep their real names, saving to older Android works, save success/fail is honestly distinguishable.
• Small polish: pin is instant, save animation from the centre, message timestamps respect 24-hour setting, forwarded messages carry the "Forwarded" tag.
• Under the hood: fewer memory leaks, fewer duplicate downloads, safer rate limiting, and update installs won't lock you out after a failed attempt.

• Send photos, videos and files. They arrive in the conversation, not as a link. A document shows its name and size; a video shows a still from itself.
• Swipe a message to reply to it. Drag right, the way WhatsApp does — or switch it to drag left, or off, in Settings.
• Save anything to your phone. Hold a photo, then Save to device. Each chat gets its own folder, named for the person it came from.
• See what Blackbird is using. Settings now shows what is on your phone, broken down by photos, videos and files, and by chat. Clearing it frees the space and nothing else — you stay signed in and keep every setting.
• Choose when photos download. Always, on Wi-Fi only, or never. With it off a photo arrives blurred with its size on it, and one tap fetches it.
• Deleting a message now deletes the file too, so it stops counting against your storage.
• Your profile, split in two. Profile is your name, photo and bio. Account is your email, password, app lock and where you are signed in.
• A number that is yours for good. Your ID never changes, even if you change your username. There is a QR code for it — and scanning someone's now opens Blackbird instead of a web page.
• Forgot your password? Reset it from your email address.
• The app stops making you wait. Pinning, starring and reacting happen as you tap them instead of after the server answers, and your chats and profile show up straight away instead of loading first.

• Search your messages. Every conversation at once, or just one. Tap a result and it opens that chat at that message.
• Notifications arrive when Blackbird is closed. They did not before.
• A proper sign-in screen, with Forgot password. It used to open on two "create an account" buttons even if you already had one.
• Picking a username tells you straight away whether it is free, and suggests others you can tap. There is a confirm-password field now too.
• Forgot your app lock code? Unlock with your phone and set a new one. Before, a forgotten code meant reinstalling the app.
• Settings that did nothing now work — avatars, link detection, text size, and a confirmation before you delete a message for everyone.

Three fixes, all of them about Blackbird being able to reach you.

• The 4.0 update screen had no buttons. The version and headline drew, and everything under them — the release notes, Install and Not now — sat below the bottom of the screen with no way to scroll to them. It only happened on a major version, which is why it had never appeared before. The screen now scrolls, and long notes fade out at the cut instead of stopping mid-sentence.
• The app can find its way back if the address stops working. Yesterday Blackbird's domain was suspended for a few hours over a registration formality. Nothing was wrong with the server — it was answering the whole time — but the app only knew one address for it and that address had stopped existing. It now gets a second one, checks the first before trusting it, and moves across on its own.
• What's new labelled releases wrongly. 4.0 was filed under "patch" and 3.2 as well. Both are corrected, and the mistake that caused it is fixed.
• Release notes are sorted now. Major, Release and Patch each have their own tab, and a dot marks the tab holding the newest one so you can see where it is without opening all three.
• The update screen waits for an answer. It used to disappear if you tapped anywhere outside it, and count that as "not now" — so it went away without you deciding. Only the buttons close it.

The features were there. The app did not feel like one. This release is mostly about the second part, and about finishing the first properly.

Messages do what you expect now. Tap one and you get reply, copy, forward, star, pin, edit, delete and message info — and you choose how that menu is laid out, because four one-tap icons across the top and nine full-width rows are not the same thing on a small screen. Reactions sit above it. Delete tells you plainly whether it removes the message for you or for both of you.

Your chat list is yours to arrange. Long press any conversation to mute it for eight hours, a week or for good; pin it to the top; archive it; mark it unread; clear it; or delete it. Muting really is silent — the server stops sending the notification rather than the phone hiding it after the fact. Clearing empties your copy and leaves the other person's alone, and the app says so before it does it.

Messages arrive once, and they arrive. Send with no signal, close the app, come back — it goes out, exactly once. Delivery and read state are no longer a guess.

It moves. Every tap acknowledges itself, every icon has its own small gesture, and there is a haptics switch that actually governs them. Nothing in this app vibrates because a switch somewhere says it should and nothing happens.

It looks like one app. Every dialog is drawn in your theme instead of Android's grey. The icons are one designed set rather than shapes drawn one at a time. And three things are now yours to pick, each with a live preview rather than a list of words:

• Bubble style — four shapes for your messages.
• Message menu layout — four arrangements of the same nine actions.
• Menu style — the panel every list of options sits in.

New mark, new name plate. Blackbird has its own bird and its own wordmark, on the launcher, the sign-in screen and the title bar.

Search is not in this release. It is the next one.

Blackbird now lives at blackbirdtalk.com, with the app talking to api.blackbirdtalk.com. Nothing is required of you — the move happens on its own, and the old address keeps working for as long as anyone might still be pointed at it.

• There is a website now. It explains what Blackbird is, what it deliberately does not do, and how to get past the warnings Android shows when installing an app from outside the Play Store — which is the part that has been hardest to explain over a message.
• The privacy, terms and licence pages the app links to actually exist. They used to open a page that did not.
• Inviting someone now sends them to the site rather than starting a download on their phone. A link that immediately downloads a file reads as suspicious, and it gave them no way to understand the Play Protect warning that followed.
• The app finds the server by asking it, so a future move needs no update at all — this one included.

Preferences is no longer one long list:

• Settings are now grouped into Privacy, Chats, Media and storage, Notifications and Appearance, and each opens its own screen. Finding one setting used to mean scrolling past twenty-three others.
• Media downloads have their own place. Four of the eight entries under "chat behavior" were about when files download, which is not chat behaviour.
• "Advanced" is gone. It held a single toggle about queuing messages while offline, which belongs with the rest of sending, and now sits in Chats.
• Every screen says what it is at the top, and has a way back. The old one had neither.

• No user-facing change. Published so the cancel-the-install path can be tested against a build that has the stacking fix.

• The "Do you want to update this app?" prompt no longer stacks. Three separate parts of the app reacted to a finished download and each opened the installer, so cancelling one revealed the next behind it. Worse, returning to Blackbird after cancelling opened another, which made the prompt feel impossible to get rid of.
• The installer is now opened once per downloaded update. Tapping Install again yourself still opens it — the guard only stops the app doing it on your behalf.

• No user-facing change. Published to test what happens when you cancel Android's install confirmation and are offered the update again.

• Backing out of Android's install confirmation no longer means downloading the whole update again. The offer would reappear because the app was still on the old version, and every tap re-fetched a file that was already on the device. Blackbird now checks what it already has, verifies it, and offers to install it instead — the button reads Install rather than Update.
• This also covers the case where Blackbird was closed between downloading and installing: the file is re-verified from disk rather than re-fetched.

• Dismissing the "Updated to…" notice on the chat list no longer leaves your chats pushed down. The notice was hidden but the space it occupied was never given back, so the list sat below an empty gap until you left the screen and came back.
• That gap is now measured from the notice itself rather than assumed, so it stays correct when the text wraps or you use a larger font size.
• On a patch update, the download size sits next to the version instead of trailing after the release notes.

• No user-facing change. This release exists to prove the update path on a clean device: the prompt appears on its own, the download reports its progress in the sheet, and the installer opens without anyone tapping twice.

• Blackbird logs each step of an update, so a failure can be read off the device instead of guessed at. adb logcat -s Blackbird follows the whole flow.

• A downloaded update now opens its installer by itself. If notifications were turned off, or the download was started from the sign-in screen, the update finished downloading and then nothing happened — the file was there, but nothing on the device was listening for it.
• Release notes are no longer chopped into fragments. Every wrapped line was being drawn as its own paragraph, so a single bullet arrived as a bullet plus two loose sentences.

• Install now shows its progress on the update sheet itself. Blackbird asked for notification permission only in the manifest and never at runtime, so on newer Android the download notification was invisible — the download was running, but nothing on screen said so, and the button looked dead.
• Tapping Install while a download is already running no longer starts a second one.
• Blackbird now asks for notification permission the moment you tap Install, where the reason for asking is obvious.
• A failed download reports itself on the sheet, with the button becoming Retry, instead of only in a notification you may not be able to see.

• The app icon no longer fills its tile edge to edge. Launchers add their own mask and padding on top, so the bird was being cropped and looked oversized.
• Blackbird now checks for updates every time it opens. It used to skip the check for six hours after the last one — including after a check that found nothing — so a release published just after you opened the app stayed invisible until you checked by hand.
• Dismissing an update no longer means being asked again on the very next launch. A patch waits three days, a release a day, a major twelve hours, and a genuinely new version always asks once straight away.
• A notification when a new version lands, once per release rather than once per check, on its own channel you can silence separately.
• Signed-out devices are told about updates too. The check only ran once you were signed in, so a required update could never reach anyone who had been logged out.
• Settings no longer shows the same icon on two rows in a row.
• Fixed the update sheet's Install button using the wrong text colour on themes whose accent is light.

The first release Blackbird installs by itself.

• Fixed the release title being cut in half by the date when notes were published.
• Release notes no longer swallow lines that begin with a bracket.

Blackbird could not deliver an update to anyone. The server advertised a release whose file had never been written, under a filename nothing produced, with an empty fingerprint that the app then compared against and rejected. This release rebuilds that path end to end.

This one has to be installed by hand. Releases are now signed with a dedicated key instead of the machine-local debug key, and Android will not install an update signed with a different key than the copy you already have. Uninstall Blackbird, then install this version fresh — your chats live on the server and come back when you sign in. Every release after this one updates in place.

• One command publishes a release, and it refuses to publish a debug build, an unsigned build, or one signed with the wrong key.
• The app verifies every download against the server's fingerprint, resumes an interrupted download where it left off, and cleans up after itself.
• Updates now say what went wrong: no space, no connection, missing permission, a damaged file, a signature conflict. Each has its own explanation and a way forward, rather than a notification that told you to retry from a Settings screen that did not exist.
• Settings now has Check for updates.
• Three kinds of update, each with its own look — major, release and patch — all drawn in whichever of the 28 themes you're using.
• View changelog on the update prompt, and release notes after an update lands rather than only before.
• The app icon is now a proper adaptive icon, so it keeps its shape on every launcher.

The rebrand is now complete, down to the app's own identity.

• The app id changed from com.dex.dexchat to com.dex.blackbird. Android treats that as a different app, so this installs alongside the old one rather than replacing it — sign in again, then remove the old icon.
• Nothing named DexChat remains in the app's own code or resources. The server's internal names — the systemd unit, the database, /opt/dexchat, the domain — are unchanged, because renaming those means rebuilding the VPS and the domain is baked into every client already installed.

Sign-in, rebuilt:

• Sign in the way you signed up — email and a one-time code, or username and password. Accounts created with an email had no password and could never get back in; now they can.
• Every error is a plain sentence under the field it belongs to. No more raw server responses in a toast.
• Codes expire, are single-use, allow five attempts, and have a live resend countdown.
• Your username can no longer be changed by signing in, and one email belongs to one account permanently.
• Settings > Account — add an email to a username account, or set a password on an email account. Both doors, one identity.
• An expired session now returns you to sign-in instead of a blank screen.

Themes:

• Two collections: Aesthetic (16, each with its own wallpaper) and Solid (12 flat palettes). Each preset carries a character name rather than "light"/"dark".
• Black Pearl, the default, is redrawn in onyx and platinum with a frosted glass wallpaper and brushed-graphite surfaces.
• The chat list now carries its theme's own texture instead of flat colour.
• The app bar, floating button, tab bar and chat pills follow the active preset; several were stuck on the original cherry red.

• Rewritten About screen.

The app is now Blackbird — Connect freely.

• Brand new identity: new name, new logo, new launcher icon
• The bird mark appears on the welcome screen, in About, and in your notifications
• Everything else is exactly where you left it — your chats, contacts and settings carry over untouched

Chat that finally feels like WA / Telegram:

• Live echo — your own bubble now appears the instant you tap send, with a clock icon that upgrades to ✓ once the server acks
• Delivered (✓✓) and read (✓✓ blue) receipts on outgoing messages
• Custom chat header — avatar, name, live "typing…" and Online subtitle, call and video icons
• Anchored autoscroll — no more yanking you to the bottom mid-scroll
• Floating "↓" pill with unread count when new messages arrive while scrolled up
• Date separators — Today / Yesterday / weekday
• Load-more history when you scroll up
• "Waiting for network…" banner when the WebSocket drops, gone the moment we reconnect
• Failed sends turn red — tap to retry or delete
• New Preferences screen (GB-WhatsApp style) — categorized privacy toggles: show online, last seen, read receipts, typing; plus chat behavior (Enter sends, autodownload, link previews) and more

What's new:

• Bottom-nav with proper vector icons (Chats / Calls / Status / Settings)
• Full contacts screen with search — matches phone numbers to Blackbird users, invite the rest
• Themes tab shows 12 preset color swatches — tap to apply instantly
• Loading spinners on every async action (signup, OTP, login, send)
• New chat FAB opens a menu — search Blackbird users or pick from your contacts
• Redesigned What's New sheet — big hero, semver-aware badge (Major / Minor / Patch)

• Auto-update: app now checks for new versions on launch and shows a "What's New" prompt
• Settings > About > View changelog — full version history
• Update downloads run as a foreground service with a progress notification
• Force-update flag supported (used when a breaking schema change ships)

• Dual signup flows: phone-OTP (WA style) and username-first (TG style)
• 1:1 cloud chats over WebSocket
• Message history REST fetch
• 12 built-in themes (default: Cherry Snow — white + cherry red)
• HTTPS via Caddy + Let's Encrypt, hosted on dexchatapp.duckdns.org