Help Centre

You need an email address, a username and a date of birth. The date of birth decides which features are open to you and is not there to advertise at you. See the age limits.

You can have several and switch between them without signing out each time. Saved accounts show a badge when one of them has something waiting, so you know before you switch.

The one thing you may not do is make a new account to get around a suspension.

Two-step verification and passkeys are both in Settings. A passkey is the stronger option: it uses your phone's own fingerprint or face unlock and there is no password to steal.

If you think somebody else is in your account, change your password and write to us immediately.

• A post can hold text and up to several photos or videos, which appear as one swipeable set.
• A TrustClip is a short video for the clips feed. The video editor (trimming, splitting, stickers, text and sound) is switched off for now, so a clip posts as it was recorded or picked.
• A story disappears after 24 hours.
• A poll lets people vote rather than reply.

Photos and videos are shrunk on your device before they are sent, which takes a moment but means the upload itself is far smaller and far faster on a weak connection. You will see it shrinking, then uploading, with a percentage where one is available.

If it fails, tap the item to retry rather than starting the post again.

A post or clip you start and do not finish is kept on your device so you can come back to it. Clearing your browser data clears drafts too.

Use the menu on the post. It goes from TrustFirst, but anything somebody already reposted or saved is beyond our reach. The full explanation is in the Terms.

Starting a conversation with someone new needs a verification badge. It is the only thing verification gates, and it exists because opening a message to a stranger is where most scams begin. Replying to a conversation already open needs nothing.

If they have blocked you, you will not be able to reach them at all.

Not a fault. It was locked for an encryption key this device does not have, usually because you signed in on a new device without restoring your message backup.

If you set up Message Backup, restore it with your PIN and the message should open. Without a backup, it cannot be opened.

It depends on the message, and this is worth understanding rather than discovering.

Encrypted messages, which are typed messages in a one-to-one chat, can only be opened with the key on your device. If you turned on Message Backup in Settings, under Security, your PIN brings that key back on a new device. Without a backup, clearing your data or losing the device means they cannot be opened again by anyone, including us.

Everything else, meaning group chats, photos, voice notes, videos and files, is not encrypted yet. It is still on our servers and comes back when you sign in again.

Tap the notice in the conversation, or open the chat settings, and choose: off, once seen, after 24 hours, or after 7 days. Either person can change it and both are told when it changes.

It removes messages from the conversation. It cannot remove them from a screenshot.

Live streams are switched off at the moment. What follows describes how they work when they are switched on.

You must be 16 or older. Check what is behind you before you start: whatever is in frame goes out immediately and there is no editing it afterwards.

Viewers can ask to join. You see who they are before you accept, and accepting puts their camera and microphone in front of everyone watching. You can remove them at any time, and you are responsible for what they do while they are up.

The video is not recorded, so there is no replay. The chat and reactions are kept so somebody arriving late can follow along.

Coins, gifts and the wallet are switched off at the moment, withdrawals included. What follows describes how they work when they are switched on. If you believe you had money in a wallet, write to us and we will pay it out.

You buy coins, and you spend coins to send someone a gift. The creator receives 80 percent of its value into their wallet and TrustFirst keeps 20 percent to run the platform. You must be 18.

A gift cannot be taken back once sent.

Coins are a virtual item. They have no cash value and cannot be turned back into money.

Your wallet is real money you have earned from gifts, and you can withdraw it.

Minimum withdrawal is R50, and bank transfers take 1 to 3 business days. The bank account must be your own.

Tax on what you earn is yours to declare. We do not deduct it for you.

Unspent coins can be refunded within 7 days of buying them. Spent coins cannot, because the value has already gone to a creator. If something went wrong at our end (a double charge, coins that never arrived), write to us and there is no time limit on us fixing it. Full detail in the Terms.

• Blue: a real person.
• Silver: a real business.
• Red: a government body or official.
• Green: a child account with a verified guardian.
• Gold: a public figure, granted by us.

A badge means we checked who somebody is. It is not us saying they are trustworthy.

It is deleted the moment your application is decided, either way, and automatically after 7 days if nobody has looked at it. Cover your ID number before photographing it. A reviewer only needs your face, your name and the document type.

Immediate, and it does not need us. A blocked person cannot message you, see your posts, mention you, tag you or interact with you anywhere. They are not told, and you do not owe anyone an explanation.

Every post, clip, comment, message and account has a report option in its menu. Reporting a message sends us that message, which is the only way we can act on it. We do not read your conversations.

Anything involving a child, a threat, or somebody in danger goes to the front of the queue.

Mutes notifications for a day, three days, a week or a month, on the phone or browser where you turn it on. Notifications still arrive and still count up. You simply are not interrupted by them. Nobody else is told. You can come back early whenever you like.

Child accounts are switched off for now, so you must be 18 to create an account. When they are switched on, anyone under 18 needs an account linked to a verified parent or guardian. The guardian can see their activity, change what they are allowed to do, and close the account at any time. Nobody under 18 can buy coins or send gifts, with or without permission.

Eddie is not answering messages or mentions at the moment. What follows describes how it works when it is switched on.

Eddie is an AI assistant. It can answer questions, make images and read messages aloud. It cannot see your direct messages, it does not speak for us, and it is confidently wrong sometimes. Check anything that matters.

There is a daily limit, which is what keeps it free.

It leaves TrustFirst. Eddie runs on an outside AI provider, so treat it as a conversation that goes elsewhere and do not paste passwords, ID numbers or somebody else's private information into it.