Messaging · calls · rooms · for families everywhere
Messages, voice and video calls, photos, voice rooms, polls and events for your family and friends, wherever they live. Private end to end, with smart features that work on your phone, not on someone else's servers. No account. No phone number. No ads.
Free. Open it, pick a name, create a room and share its invite link: that's the whole sign-up. Computers join the same rooms, calls and voice rooms as phones. Install help for every device is below.
Already have Tern on Android? Update it first: that update moves your chats into the new Tern app on your phone.
What Tern does
Create a room, share its link, talk. Messages are end-to-end encrypted: Tern's relay stores and forwards sealed envelopes and holds no message keys.
One-to-one and group calls with up to thirty people, private end to end, on phones and computers.
Rooms for a family, a team or a club, with everything that's happening on one screen.
Catch Me Up summaries in eight languages, reply suggestions, ask-your-chat, search and voice-note transcription, all worked out on your phone. Always labelled as AI, never sent anywhere.
It notices tasks, bills, trips and shopping in your chat and puts them on a shared family board, with a weekly summary. It suggests; you decide. Its actions go in an activity log, and Revoke all refuses every new action.
Turn on App Lock and Tern asks for your face, fingerprint, Windows Hello or Touch ID before it shows your rooms, messages or call history, even on an unlocked device. Calls still ring. On iPhone it comes with the newest TestFlight build.
Your identity is created on your phone. Invite people without uploading your contacts. There's no directory to leak and no number to find you by.
Runs on phones back to Android 8 and iOS 16, and on Android phones without Google services. The AI features are an optional download, so you choose when to spend the data.
Why it's different
Big messengers are adding cloud AI to private chats, so your words travel to their servers. Tern's summaries, suggestions and search stay on your phone. Not "we promise not to look": we can't.
Your history lives on your devices. Our servers only pass along locked envelopes; they hold no message keys. It works offline, and if our servers go down you lose nothing.
No feeds, no streaks, no red badges built to make you anxious, no autoplay. "You're all caught up" is a feature. Built to Europe's rules for respectful apps from day one.
Type anything. The right side is what a relay, a network, or anyone in between sees. (This demo runs entirely in your browser; nothing is sent.)
What's next
On Windows: show a screen or one window to everyone on a call. On Android and iPhone: show your whole screen. Private end to end like the rest of the call, and one tap or click stops it. On iPhone it needs the newest TestFlight build. On a Mac with macOS 14 or later, Tern can't share a screen yet; a fix is being tested.
Keep your history safe and move it to a new phone, still private end to end.
Install Tern from the store you already use.
Make stickers and use the private AI features from your desk, like on your phone.
Find "the message about the school form" even when you don't remember the words.
Compare the real cost and the amount that arrives before you send, then confirm.
The whole app in more of the languages our families speak.
Install notes
1Tap the iPhone button above. It opens TestFlight — install it from the App Store if asked, then Tern. The App Store listing is in review; TestFlight installs the same 1.0 app today.
2Updates arrive automatically: Tern checks each time you open it and, when a new build is out, shows one "Update now" that opens TestFlight (or the App Store).
1Download the APK with Chrome, then open it from Chrome's Downloads. On Xiaomi / Redmi / POCO the built-in Mi Browser and the "GetApps" prompt can block a direct install; Chrome does not.
2Allow "Install unknown apps" for Chrome when asked. Oppo, Realme, Vivo, Infinix and Tecno sometimes hide the switch: Settings → Apps → Chrome → Install unknown apps → Allow, then open the file again.
3If Play Protect says "Unknown app blocked": More details → Install anyway. Xiaomi's own scan: Continue / Install anyway.
4Phones without Google services (Huawei and others) install the same way; Tern uses no Google services at all.
5Xiaomi / Redmi / POCO: let calls show. Xiaomi can hide a newly installed app's call screen: the phone still rings, but Tern's call screen may not open, above all on a locked phone. Open Settings → Apps → Manage apps → Tern → Other permissions and turn on "Show on lock screen" and "Display pop-up windows while running in the background". On the same app page, turn on Autostart and set Battery saver → No restrictions, so Tern can still ring after a restart.
6New versions install from inside Tern: it downloads the update itself, checks it, and asks you to install with one tap. Android asks once to allow "Install unknown apps" for Tern. Everything stays where it was.
7Tern on Android now installs as a new app. If you had Tern before, update it first (it becomes "Tern (old)", 0.80), then tap Move to the new Tern: your identity, rooms, messages and settings go straight from the old app to the new one on your phone, through no server. When the new Tern says "Everything moved", keep "Tern" and remove only "Tern (old)". Opened the new app first? It offers the old app's update itself.
1Unzip, drag Tern to Applications.
2Open it. Tern is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS opens it after one "downloaded from the internet" question — no trip to Privacy & Security.
3New versions: the app tells you on launch and opens the download; drag the new Tern over the old one.
4Had the earlier Mac app? This one is new (same features as Windows) and starts fresh — rejoin your rooms with their invite codes.
1Download, unzip, and run Tern.exe once - it installs itself for you (no administrator needed) and adds Tern to the Start menu and the desktop. You can delete the download afterwards.
2If SmartScreen appears: More info → Run anyway. The app isn't code-signed yet.
3Updates install themselves: Tern offers the new version, checks it against hellotern.com and restarts. Your rooms and messages stay where they are.
Questions
Open Tern, enter a name, tap Create a room. You're in it immediately. Share the room's invite code or link with the people you want — that is how everyone else gets in. Tern has no public directory and no "people you may know": rooms are made of people who already know each other.
No. Your identity is created on your device, which is also why you should keep the app installed on a phone you keep. There's no account to register. Today our relay keeps connection records (IP address, times, and room and device identifiers that include your display name); we are cutting this to counts kept for 7 days.
Tern's servers hold none of the keys. Messages are locked on your phone with keys only your room has, and our servers carry the sealed envelopes. Calls are locked on your phone too, and our call server passes along sound and video it has no key to play.
Catch Me Up summaries, reply suggestions, search and voice-note transcription run on your phone, using small models you download once. Nothing is sent anywhere, and everything AI-made is labelled. Tern Orbit, the separate agent app, can use a bigger model online for a task, but only after you say okay, and only with what you approved.
No feed, no ranking, no algorithmic timeline. Rooms are chronological. When the messages end, you're caught up.
Yes, Tern is free. Tern Orbit is free during early access.
Rooms are joined with an invite, and there is no public directory. A room's creator can make its invite expire or work once. Anyone can report a message or block a person, and reports to Tern are answered within 24 hours. The smart features never send a child's words anywhere.
Private, not unmoderated. Tern's relay forwards sealed messages and holds no message keys. Anyone in a room can report a message: the report carries that message to the room's moderators, and to Tern if you choose to send it there. Moderators remove reported messages with a written reason the author can appeal. Restricting abusive identities across the service is being built.
Yes. The Android app installs directly, including on phones without Google services, and Tern works anywhere the internet does. Summaries work in eight languages today; the app itself is in English for now, with more languages coming soon.
Tern Orbit for Business · early access
Orbit is where a business can bring its people, knowledge, conversations, and AI agents together to get work done.
Today, on Windows and Mac: ask your agent by name, watch it bring in specialists, and approve every action before it happens.
Your agent and the specialists it can call on today. In the app, its face breathes, blinks, glances while it works and nods when a task lands. A speaking, lip-synced version is coming next.
The journey
Follow one request all the way through. Every step is labelled honestly:
An example: Juniper Coffee and its figures are made up. The demo runs in your browser and sends nothing. Sound is off unless you turn it on; captions are always shown.
Your own agents
Choose how your agent looks, sounds and behaves, and what it's expert in. Preview — coming next Today, Orbit has one face that you give a name; the looks, voices, personalities and business agents below are where it's going.
Why businesses choose Orbit
Before a task starts, Orbit shows exactly what it will read and who it will ask: "Here's what I'll do. Okay to go ahead?" Nothing is sent, spent or booked without a person's okay.
A second AI checks each answer before it's called done. When something can't be confirmed, Orbit says so instead of guessing.
Findings come with where they came from, and every task shows what it cost to run. Nothing hidden, nothing rounded up.
Your agent hands parts of a job to specialists — a researcher, travel, shopping, money, paperwork and a communicator — that search the web and report back.
Ask it to keep an eye on a price or a rule. Each check runs a web search and reads the results; it does not open pages itself. It checks from your tray while Orbit is open and tells you what changed. In the Orbit available today (0.10 to 0.13) a check stops two hours after you set it; the fix is in the next release, and then checks run hourly to weekly.
An activity log of approvals, web searches, checks and refusals with their reasons, ready to export. Revoke all refuses every new action; a watch stops with its own Stop button.
What your agent remembers stays on your computer, and every memory shows its source. When a task needs more thinking power, only the part you approved is sent, and it isn't kept afterwards. Tern doesn't train AI on your conversations.
Orbit joins a Tern room only when you give it that room's invite code. It joins under your name, and the room doesn't mark it as an AI yet, so let people know it's there. Tern's calls and rooms are encrypted end to end.
The vision
Where Orbit is heading, in the order we're building it. None of this is in the app yet unless it says so.
Try it
Free during early access. iPhone and Android coming soon. Open it, name your agent, and ask it something.
First open on a Mac: double-click Tern Orbit once and close the warning. Then open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to "Tern Orbit was blocked", click Open Anyway and confirm. On Windows, if SmartScreen appears: More info → Run anyway. The apps aren't signed by Apple or Microsoft yet, so this is asked once.
Want Orbit for your team, or an agent that represents your business? Tell us the first job you'd hand it.
smaan@hellotern.comQuestions
On Windows and Mac: talk to your agent by name, tell it what to remember (every memory shows where it came from), hand it research that specialists work on with web search, get double-checked answers with sources and the cost of the task, ask it to keep checking something from your tray (in the Orbit available today a check stops two hours after you set it; the fix is in the next release), read the activity log, and invite it into a Tern room. Presentations, meetings with a speaking avatar, custom agents and connected tools are coming next.
No. It proposes; a person approves. Sending, spending and booking always wait for your okay, you choose what it may do by itself, Revoke all refuses every new action, and each watch has its own Stop button.
Your agent's memory and task history stay on your computer. Research uses a bigger AI model online, only after you approve the plan, and only with what the plan shows. It isn't kept afterwards.
Yes. Tasks that read what you've asked it to remember, and scheduled checks, first need a one-time adult check in the app. Research from public sources works straight away.
It's a separate app. Tern is where people message, call and meet; Orbit is where your agents work. Orbit joins a Tern room when you give it that room's invite code. It joins under your name, and the room doesn't mark it as an AI yet, so tell the people in the room it's there.
Orbit is free during early access. Business plans are coming.