Germ User Guide
Intro
Germ DM is private chat software for multifaceted humans. Read more in our FAQs.
Germ DM puts you in charge of what information you produce, store, and share—with other users, and with us, the developer. You can read a technical description of our data access in our Privacy Policy.
This User Guide explains how Germ’s technology works and how to understand and use our features to protect your experience. Some of our features and ways of interacting may be familiar to you and others may be new. Germ DM is an emerging product that is continually growing in response to your feedback, which we gladly receive by email or in our Discord.
Our Values
Germ is designed and built on the principles of agency, accessibility, utility, and alignment.
Agency
You have the power to take actions. You decide what actions Germ takes on your behalf.
Accessibility
Germ is for everyone. We continually work to make Germ more usable by more people.
Utility
Germ makes it easier to be social. Our tools make it fast, simple, and trustworthy to make friends, set boundaries, and stay in touch.
Alignment
Our business supports healthy community life by design. When our users are healthy, our company is healthy.
Getting Started with Germ DM 2.0
Germ 2.0 is a 1:1 messenger app for iOS that lets you build and trade profile cards to set up messaging sessions with friends.
Cards
Cards are small digital profiles that you use to connect with people. You can make and share multiple cards. Your cards are totally separate from one another—no one can find out about other cards you have unless you tell them.
Trade cards with someone to start a 1:1 conversation. No one can send you a private message unless you accept one of their cards and they accept one of yours.
Cards are the interface through which users exchange cryptographic key packages and authenticate their connections. (Read more about our technology in FAQs, and more about authenticating your connections in “Authenticate Other Users,” below)
Build a Card
From the “Me” screen, build your cards with a name, pronouns, photo, and/or alt text. The minimum you need to create a card is an initial in the Name field. You decide exactly what to share in each field. Then, press “Create This Card.”
Name: This is how others will know you. You decide what to share.
Pronouns: Type and select from a prefilled option, or type your own pronouns and press enter to save.
Picture: Tap the photo icon to upload a photo from your camera reel. Click Crop to resize, then save.
ALT Text: Describe your photo for visually impaired people who use a screen reader that reads screen content aloud.
Edit Your Card
Your cards can be edited after you’ve created and shared them. Your friends receive your edits when you send them a message and they send you one back. If the edit doesn’t go through, exchange a few more messages.
You can see your and your friends’ card edit history in the conversation detail, by clicking at the top of your conversation and then selecting “History.”
Share a Card
To start talking to someone, share one of your cards with them.
Tap the QR code icon on your card and show it to someone in person or through a video call. Or click “Send a link.” Enter the name of the person you’re sending the card to, so that you know your link doesn’t go to someone unintended. Then click “Share card” and send it through any method you choose, like an e-mail or a DM.
QR codes have a default usage of 5, for when you’re standing around with a few people. Links are set to 5 uses by default, but can be shared up to 100 times. Adjust the number of uses when you create the link, or later, in your card detail under “Invitations.” This is also where you can close open invitation links if you don’t want anyone new to use them.
Accept a Card
When someone sends you a card while you’re using the app, the card will appear on your screen. If you receive a card while you’re not in the app, it will be listed as Pending in your “Friends” tab.
Viewing your new friend’s card, or after selecting your friend’s card from the Pending list, decide which of your cards to send back and press “Share.”
View a Card
You can view a friend’s card a few ways.
From the “Friends” pane, you can see your friend’s card in miniature. Or click ‘i’ for a larger card detail with notification setting controls and encryption information.
Or, from your conversation, click on the top menu bar to see details of your conversation. Then click your friend’s card preview to see their full card detail.
Annotate a Card or Card Exchange
You can leave private notes to yourself that help you remember who someone is or how you met them. When viewing someone else’s card detail, click the pen icon to leave yourself a private note about them. When viewing a conversation, click the top bar of the conversation and then click the pen to leave yourself a private note about how or where you received their card. (This is also where the note you left when you sent someone a text link will be stored later.) No one else can see these notes but you.
Chat
You can navigate to a chat by tapping a friend’s card in “Friends,” or through the “Chat” page. Chats work how you’d expect! Just type your message and send.
Blocking, Ending, and Deleting Conversations
You can end a conversation with someone by blocking them, deleting their card, or deleting your card that you shared with them. In all these cases, the person you’ve ended a conversation with will not be notified, but their future messages will not be delivered to you.
If you delete a conversation with someone, you will lose your conversation history, but you and that person can still contact each other. The other person’s conversation history will not delete on their device, only on yours.
Blocking a card is the reversible way to end a conversation with someone. Block someone by going to their card detail, clicking the Restrict exclamation point icon, and selecting Block. You can see who you’ve blocked, and unblock people, via “Me”>Settings>Blocked cards.
Other Settings
You can use Germ in light mode or dark mode.
You can control your push notifications in granular ways. In Settings, you can turn all notifications on or off. You can mute individual conversations through that conversation’s detail or that friend’s card detail. You can also mute or unmute all of the conversations you have through one of your cards through your own card detail.
Troubleshooting
If you’re experiencing a bug, try Force Quitting your app and reopening it.
If there are bugs or omissions in a conversation, the best way to heal a conversation is to keep sending messages in both directions!
Help Us Out
If something goes wrong in your app, send us a bug report! Before restarting your app, navigate to Settings>App Logging. Describe what happened and what should have happened, trying to capture what steps you took in what order before the bug occurred. Then send us your logs. Logs have no personal data of any kind—we don’t know who sent them, nor can we read any of the content of your cards or messages.
If you like what we’re up to, you can Support Germ with a tip. Navigate here in our website to “Support Germ.” We appreciate you!
More About Protecting Your Experience on Germ
Germ DM is designed to put you in control of what information you produce, store, and share—for yourself, with other users, and with us, the developer. It puts you in control of how you identify, who can contact you, who can access the information you create, and for how long. Here’s a bit more about our design philosophy and how to make the most of our tools.
User Agency (aka, Germ Works for You)
Germ’s app takes actions based on directions from you, the user—not from us, its developers (a concept known as “user agency”). You are totally in charge of what you share with others on Germ. When you first download Germ, you are alone. Whatever information you input into cards is stored on your device by the app. You decide how, when, and with whom to share this information. We do not recommend your cards to people, introduce you to people, or collect information about your behavior. We do not spy on you or help others spy on you in any way.
Data Minimisation
Germ is designed on the principle of “data minimisation,” the idea that the best way to protect your data is to produce as little of it as possible. Unlike some other software, Germ does not create or collect personalized data on your in-app usage like how long you spend in the app, what you view or click on, what you scroll past or for how long, and so forth, nor do we know your phone number, e-mail address, location, or other sensitive information that is often collected, analyzed, and sold.
All of the content in Germ is end-to-end encrypted: data is encrypted on your device and decrypted on the recipient’s device; we cannot read it as it travels through our servers, nor can we produce it for anyone else.
Privacy
End-to-end encryption and data minimisation keep your data private and secure from us, the developers, and from third parties. But privacy is also about how you connect with other people in the app, what you share with them, and for how long.
On Germ, other people only know exactly what you tell them. They can only see the information that is on the card you shared with them, and what you sent them in your messages. They cannot see or find your other cards. They cannot see or find the private notes you leave yourself in the app. They do not need to learn your phone number to contact you. They can only talk to you with your continued permission, maintained by keeping your connection with them active (see “Ending a Conversation.”)
Authentication (aka, Knowing Who You’re Talking To)
Germ uses cryptographic technology to help you make sure that the person you’re talking to is who you think they are—whether that is someone you know very well and met in person, or someone you know by how you met online. Germ’s software offers tools to help you remember how closely you know someone and how much you think you should trust them.
Germ has automatic and optional tools to authenticate who you’re talking to. The more of these tools you use, the better you protect your experience:
Exchange single-use card links. If you’re talking to someone who connected with you through a multi-use link, authenticate your connection in person by comparing apps, or by asking them to send you a message somewhere else you know each other.
Annotate your cards with a Nickname so you remember who you’re talking to
Annotate your connections and your links
Encryption details: If you want to be sure that the end of an end-to-end encrypted conversation is who you think it is, you and the person you’re talking to can compare the Safety Digest in Encryption Details, found via your conversation detail. Both of you should see the same Safety Digest. You shouldn’t compare the digests by exchanging them in the Germ conversation; compare them in person or though another means. If the digests don’t match, then you’re not directly talking to each other. For example, it’s possible that someone’s card was substituted when you initially exchanged them, perhaps if someone forwarded a card to you. To re-establish a trusted channel with your friend, re-exchange cards through a trusted means outside of the Germ app.
Remember, impersonations and scams are rising on every platform. If you haven’t met someone in person, assume they could be different from who they say they are.
Opt-In Research
Most apps spy on you in order to understand you and evolve their products. When we do research, we ask you to participate. Your participation helps us make sure Germ is living our values of agency, accessibility, utility, and alignment.
When we conduct research, we ask you to share information about your app usage, but sharing this information does not give us access to your app information. We know exactly what you tell us and nothing else. Participation does not extend beyond the moment of submission.
By participating in our voluntary research, you help us understand and improve Germ for everybody. Thank you in advance!
Next Up
Group messaging with events tools! Take your friends all the way from the invite, to the party, to the group chat.
Let us know what else you’re waiting for by reaching out by email or in our Discord.