v1.14.0

Zen 1.14.0 makes everyday use faster and calmer: friends show up sooner, posts from friends of friends arrive in seconds, and you decide which notifications and sounds you get.

What's new

• Settings → Notifications and sounds: choose which kinds of notifications you get, and hear soft sounds for messages, likes and posts.
• Friends show up as online or in the background much sooner, and the graph opens on a presence view.
• See how much room Zen takes (1 GB by default), and keep unsent messages, comments and posts after a restart.

Please read before updating

• Zen now keeps within a storage limit of 1 GB. When it goes over, it deletes only the oldest photos and videos from friends' posts — never your messages, chats, your own posts, backups or exports — and offers to raise the limit. If Zen already takes more than 1 GB on your device, open Settings → Data and storage after the update and raise the limit first if you want to keep those photos.
• iPhone: Zen installs and updates with SideStore. Scarlet is no longer supported. The iPhone install page walks you through it step by step, including a daily automation so SideStore renews Zen by itself without a computer.
• Friends on 1.13.x keep working with 1.14.0, but they see your presence changes later. Ask them to update when they can.

Notifications and sounds

• One page for notifications and sounds: in-app sounds, a switch for notification sound (a ringing call and a friend's alarm are always heard) and a switch for each kind — messages, groups, calls, mentions, reactions, friends' posts, posts of further friends, invitations and updates. The rules also hold while Zen is locked.
• Sounds where they were missing: sending in a group, a message arriving in the open chat, likes and reactions, a published post and a new entry in the notification list.
• Notices at the bottom of the screen can be swiped away.

Chats and drafts

• The send button sits level with the text, for any font and text size.
• A chat stays at the newest message when the keyboard opens, a message arrives or you send one. Scrolled up, what you are reading no longer jumps.
• Unsent messages, comments and new posts survive a restart, stored encrypted with your account.

Presence and network

• Presence shows up within seconds: going in and out of Zen is told straight away to friends who have Zen open, with no extra wake-ups for locked phones.
• What friends showed is remembered over a restart (up to 30 minutes). New states: "no connection" while your device is offline, and "status unknown" when the last state is too old or a friend's Zen is too old to tell.
• Public peers: every built-in peer is on and shows what it is doing. A phone replaces a dead peer within seconds and reconnects at the first wake after an outage. While locked, it keeps 2 links instead of 4, so the radio wakes less often.
• Mail waiting in your friends' mailboxes reaches a phone at its first wake after an outage.
• Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth links are on by default, and run only when there is a friend's device nearby to link with.

Faster wall

• Posts from friends of friends arrive within seconds (they took 20–40 seconds, sometimes up to 10 minutes), and their notification comes within about 15 seconds.
• Notifications about friends' posts, likes and comments come after a few seconds of quiet, also in busy threads.

Graph, profile and settings

• The graph opens on a presence view, and its camera and filter buttons no longer cover the modes.
• The follower count includes every friend, and the followers list shows them.
• One "Data and storage" page shows how much room Zen takes, with a breakdown and an optional separate limit for friends' photos and videos.
• "Run the setup again" is at the top of Settings.

Updates

• Updating does the right thing on each system: Android opens its installer, Windows, Mac and Linux replace themselves and restart (or tell you exactly what to do with the saved file), a Flatpak shows its command, and iPhone hands the update to SideStore.
• The "new version" notification goes away once that version is installed.

Fixes

• Screens and sheets no longer hide their last items under the system bar.
• Holding the alarm and delete buttons no longer selects text.
• Thanks to Yggdrasil and SideStore, which make Zen possible.

v1.13.1

Zen 1.13.1 fixes the problems people hit after 1.13.0. Please update.

What's new

• Messages and notifications arrive again after Zen restarts or an account is restored.
• Restoring a full backup brings back everything, including your app password; friends see you right away.
• GIFs from the search work again, and tapping a Zen backup file opens it in Zen.

Fixes

• After the app's engine was recreated (for example after restoring an account), the background service and the app could not start their connection for minutes, so messages and notifications didn't arrive. The newest owner now takes the connection over at once.
• A friend request accepted while Zen was in the background could turn the friend back into a pending request, showing them as "Kontakt Zen" and stopping presence.
• After a restore, friends are greeted again within a minute and names and photos are exchanged with the new device.
• Restoring a whole backup restores every setting and the app password; the setup appears only when the backup comes from an older version. "I already have an account" is offered right at the password step.
• GIFs from the search are sent small enough to travel inside the message; a device that keeps receiving without confirming no longer gets the same data again and again.
• Returning to an open conversation sends the read receipt (two ticks).
• Coming back to the app no longer crashes when a link reaches it.
• "Start over" on the lock screen needs the full 10-second hold.
• The send buttons in chats and comments are centred and show their icon; snack bars with an action disappear on their own.
• The diagnostics log is saved to Downloads on Android.
• Tapping a Zen backup, key or update file opens it in Zen (Android, iPhone, Mac, Linux; "Open with" on Windows).
• The setup's gates step can set a price.

Install or update

• Android, Windows, Linux: Zen updates itself. New installs: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/
• iPhone: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/iphone/
• macOS: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/macos/

Thanks to Yggdrasil and Scarlet.

v1.13.0

Zen 1.13.0 is the biggest update so far: messages now reach you when Zen is closed or locked, and a lot of everyday rough edges are gone.

What's new

• Messages reach you even when Zen is closed or locked: your trusted friends' phones keep them for you like mailboxes.
• See whether a friend has Zen open, in the background or offline, and find your notifications in a list behind the bell.
• Zen tells you about a new version within hours, with a short note like this one.

Please read before updating

• Notifications now show the sender and the start of a message by default. Version 1.12.1 hid the content. After the update Zen opens a short setup once — choose "No sender or content" there if you prefer the old behaviour. You can change it any time in Settings, also for a single conversation.
• Update all your devices and, if you can, ask your friends to update too: phones on 1.12.1 can't act as mailboxes while locked and don't see each other on the same Wi-Fi.

Messages and delivery

• Phones are mailboxes again, also while locked: a locked Android phone keeps mail for its trusted friends and hands it over once, with a confirmation.
• A locked phone hands its connection to the background service reliably, so messages to locked phones no longer get lost.
• One notification per message, and tapping it opens the right chat, group or post.
• Mailboxes are chosen by who is actually online (computer, Android or iPhone, and how often they answer). Zen tells you when one has gone quiet for days, and a friend's old phone stops being your mailbox after they move to a new one.
• Recovered history lands in the right order; a file that will never come now says so.
• One tick means delivered, two mean read.

Notifications and presence

• Three privacy levels for notifications, globally and per conversation. A locked phone shows at most the first 80 characters.
• A notification list behind the bell in the top bar, with undo.
• Notifications about friends' new posts, with a switch and a list of muted people.
• @mentions in group chats, posts and comments.
• Presence in three states — open, in the background, offline — and when a friend last opened Zen. Weak acquaintances see none of it.
• Update notices once per version, with a short "what's new" note.

Feed, people and the pyramid

• Posts are public by default and you choose how far you look: friends, friends of friends or the third degree. Posts from further away show who passed them on.
• Pyramid: an empty head place is filled automatically after 7 days; a vote in a cell counts once members have met.
• See which system a friend uses, jump to the latest message, and come back to the screen you left.

Setup, look and backups

• A first-run setup for the lock, notifications, gates, animations and permissions.
• "Never" lock opens Zen without the password even after a restart; "Lock now" in the top bar locks it until the next unlock.
• Five new themes with their own frames, an Animations setting and better contrast.
• Account backups go to Downloads by default, or to a folder you choose.

Battery and stability

• Fewer wake-ups in the background and less Bluetooth scanning when nobody is around.
• Android: no more "app not responding" from background work, and no more memory leak on every start.
• A phone no longer carries other people's network traffic for hours (one test phone moved 2.4 GB in a night).
• A technical log with numbers only, to help diagnose problems (Settings → Diagnostics).

iPhone

• A locked Zen keeps receiving: messages wait sealed until you unlock. iOS can wake Zen in the background, through an hourly Shortcuts automation, or continuously with an optional silent sound.
• Installing is now four steps with Scarlet.

Install or update

• Android, Windows, Linux: Zen updates itself (it checks the author's signature first). New installs: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/
• iPhone: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/iphone/
• macOS: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/install/macos/
• Check the files: SHA256SUMS and its signature SHA256SUMS.sig are attached; the Android signing certificate fingerprint is in the README.

Thanks to Yggdrasil — the open, encrypted mesh network Zen runs on — and Scarlet, which makes installing Zen on an iPhone simple.

Questions and bug reports: https://robertostrowskijagoda.github.io/Zen/support/ · Discord: https://discord.gg/g4vHvpKV37

v1.12.1

Fixes a crash when sending a GIF from the keyboard.

What changed: see CHANGELOG.md. Verify your download against the SHA-256 sums (SHA256SUMS), their signature (SHA256SUMS.sig) and the signing certificate fingerprint before installing.

v1.12.0

First release of Zen as com.roj.zen: a messenger and social app for people who know each other, with no servers.
What's new: see CHANGELOG.md.

Android signing certificate (SHA-256):
5C:F8:4B:A5:25:AC:80:4C:84:2F:B5:B9:2F:35:C5:49:F6:C0:7A:84:FB:E0:C2:80:49:13:91:91:C1:EE:F5:14

Verify your download against SHA256SUMS and its signature SHA256SUMS.sig.