Using Germ DM
This page was last updated on April 9, 2026
This 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 on Bluesky, by email, or in our Discord.
The Basics
What is Germ DM?
Germ DM is private chat software for multifaceted humans. It gives you the freedom to connect securely with anyone, without oversharing. Germ lets you form connections directly, whether in person or online, and it also integrates with Bluesky, Blacksky, and other apps built on the AT Protocol to let you talk to even more friends. It is currently available on iOS in select countries.
Germ DM puts you in charge of what information you produce, store, and share—with other users, with other service providers, and with us, the developer. Germ is end-to-end encrypted on Messaging Layer Security and does not access, collect or share your personal information with anyone. You can read a technical description of our data access in our Privacy Policy and more on our blog.
This document is updated regularly as we ship new features.
Our Values
Germ is designed and built according to our values: 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.
How does Germ work?
Germ DM is a private messaging app that lets you control who can find you and what you share with them. It’s built to connect to your social apps, starting with Bluesky and other apps built on the AT Protocol, or atproto.
Your identities in Germ are called cards. Cards can be linked with atproto handles or be standalone Germ cards, which we sometimes call burner cards. You make connections with people by exchanging those cards, either directly or by sending someone a message via a link on their Bluesky or atproto profile.
Cards are representations of cryptographic keys. When you exchange cards, you’re exchanging cryptographic keys. If you link your atproto handle, you can start chats from an atproto profile, or you can always start a chat from a Germ card by sharing a QR code or a link.
Today, you can exchange text messages in this E2EE channel, but more features are coming.
Germ DM is designed to help you control what information you produce and share—with other users, and with us, the developer. The information you produce is stored on your device, not with us. When you send information to other users, it 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.
We cannot see and do not store the atproto handles that are used in our app, though they are publicly discoverable. If you’re sharing information with the Bluesky network (like a block), we’ll inform you. End-to-end encryption means that your relationships and conversations on Germ are not available to anyone, whether us, Bluesky, Blacksky, or any other service provider. Unlike some other software, we do not know your phone number, e-mail address, location, IP address, when you open or close the app, what you click on, how fast you scroll, who you talk to, or when. You can read a technical description of our data access in our Privacy Policy.
How is Germ different from other E2EE messengers?
In many popular E2EE messengers, your phone number is your identity. Anyone can message you so long as they know your phone number. The messenger uses the phone numbers of people you know to provide a translation to these users’ public keys, facilitating an end-to-end encrypted session between your and the other person’s phone number.
In Germ, your identities are the cards you create. You control who can reach you and how you present yourself to them, by exchanging cards. No one can contact you on Germ unless you’ve given them permission by exchanging a card with them. When you log in to Bluesky on Germ, you authenticate your atproto handle to one of your cards, but you still control how you are accessed.
Our unique system lets you manage multiple identities, and who can contact them, through one secure inbox. Other users who have one of your cards can’t find or see your other cards unless you actively share them. Read more about how cards work in ourUser Guide below.
