Encrypted messages
Speak freely.Disappear completely.
Voice messages, photos, files and calls, encrypted on your phone and burned when you say so.
Voice messages
Say it. It leaves as noise.
Record a voice message. The moment you stop, it is encrypted on your phone, and only the person you sent it to can turn it back into your voice.
- Recorded on Sarah’s phoneUp to two minutes, sealed into ciphertext before it is sent.
- Decrypted on yoursYour phone opens it with keys nobody in between holds.
- Played as her voiceTap play and it turns back into Sarah’s voice. To everyone else it stays noise.
Burn timers
Set it to burn.
Choose how long a message lives, from 5 minutes to 3 months, or burn it right now. It disappears from both phones and is cryptographically erased: its key is destroyed, so it can never be decrypted again.
- Pick when it burns5 minutes, 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days and up to 3 months.
- It counts down on both phonesYou both see exactly how long it has left.
- When time is upIt burns where it is, on both phones.
- Gone from both phonesOnly a note that it burned remains.
Photos and files
To everyone else, it’s just digits.
Photos and files are sealed the same way. Our servers only ever hold the scrambled version; only the recipient’s phone can put the picture back together.
- On Emma’s phoneThe photo as she took it.
- On our serversDigits nobody can turn back into a picture.
- On your phoneYour phone rebuilds it from the digits.
Voice calls
Calls nobody else can hear.
Voice calls are end-to-end encrypted too. Your voice travels between the two phones as ciphertext, and no recording is ever kept.
- Call from any chatOne tap, and it rings on their phone.
- Encrypted both waysEvery packet of the call is sealed end to end.
- Hang upAll that stays is a line in your chat.
Contacts
Only the people you add.
Add someone by email. Your phones swap public keys, so everything you send is locked to the two of you before it leaves.
- Add them by emailIf they are on Ocean's Wave, they appear in your people.
- Keys swap on your phonesTheir public key arrives; the private one never moves.
- Ready to talkPending goes once their public key is in.
Recovery phrase
24 words bring you back.
A 24-word phrase backs up your encryption keys. Typed back in, it restores them.
Servers in Dubai
Stored in Dubai.Readable by no one.
Our servers run in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. They only ever hold your messages encrypted, and the keys to open them never leave your devices. Not even we can read them.
- Location
- Dubai, UAE
- Stored as
- Ciphertext only
- Decryption keys
- None
Under the hood
Zero knowledge, by design.
The same rules apply to every voice message, photo, file and call. Nothing about it is a setting you have to find.
X25519
Keys made on your phone
Your private key is created on your device and never leaves it. We only ever see your public key.
XChaCha20-Poly1305
A fresh key for every message
Each message, photo and file is sealed with its own key before it leaves your phone.
CEK erasure
Burned means gone
When a message burns, its key is destroyed. What could be left on a disk is noise nobody can open.
libsodium
Proven cryptography
Built on libsodium, the widely used open-source crypto library. No home-made ciphers.
Zero knowledge
A server that can’t read
Our servers relay and store ciphertext. They can’t see what you say, what you send or what your files are called.
Email only
No phone number
Sign up and add people with an email address. Your phone number stays out of it.