Knit
app.getknit.knit
Zapstore _@zapstore.dev Republished from GitHub / F-Droid by the Zapstore main account.
Knit is a messenger that works with no internet, no cell service, and no accounts. It connects directly to the phones around you over Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth, passing messages device to device. When you send a message, nearby phones receive it and pass it onward to the phones around them — so your words hop across a crowd, a building, or a campsite, far past your own range. The more people using Knit nearby, the further it travels. WHY KNIT • No internet or mobile data required • No account, phone number, or email to sign up • No central server — nothing to shut down, monitor, or leak • No ads, tracking, analytics, or Google Play Services • Free software — anyone can read what the app does PERFECT FOR • Festivals and crowded venues where signal dies • Travel, flights, ships, camping, and the backcountry • Power outages and emergencies when networks fail PRIVATE BY DESIGN Direct and group chats are end-to-end encrypted. Each message is sealed so only the people in it can read it — every phone that carries it onward, and every relay, sees only ciphertext. Keys are generated on your device, protected by hardware-backed Android security. Confirm who you're talking to with a safety number or a QR scan. ABOUT THE PERMISSIONS Knit asks for nearby-devices (location before Android 13) as Android needs it to find peers over Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth LE and reach a paired radio. Location is read only when you tap Send location. INTERNET is declared because Android counts the local Wi-Fi Aware socket as network access, and because relays and link previews use it once switched on. No account, no backend: a fresh install makes no network calls. FREE SOFTWARE Knit is released under the GNU General Public License v3 or later; the full source is at github.com/getknit/knit. FEATURES • Public "Nearby" room to broadcast to everyone in range • Private 1:1 messages (end-to-end encrypted) • Multi-member groups (end-to-end encrypted) • Quoted replies, emoji reactions, and @-mentions • Image sharing, including GIFs • Voice notes, files of any type, and big files phone to phone over Wi-Fi • Search every chat, contact, and message • Encrypted backup for a new phone • Store-and-forward: messages wait until someone is back in range • Add a contact from a link when you're too far apart to scan • Optional Meshtastic LoRa radio for far longer range (see below) • Optional Internet relays, off until you turn them on (see below) • Share the app itself to a nearby phone, no app store needed • Material 3, dark mode, and Material You dynamic colors SAFER SPACES On-device filtering screens out abusive text and explicit images, offline, nothing sent anywhere. Sensitive content is blurred behind a tap to reveal, and any sender is one tap from blocked. Knit is funded by tips and sells nothing. Tip at ko-fi.com/knit, liberapay.com/zaventh or github.com/sponsors/getknit. HOW IT WORKS Knit runs Wi-Fi Aware and Bluetooth Low Energy at once, so it works on phones with only one. Best allowed to run in the background. Requires Android 10 or newer. OPTIONAL LONG-RANGE RADIO Pair a Meshtastic LoRa radio over Bluetooth and the Nearby room and your direct messages ride it too, kilometres instead of metres, still with no internet or account. The radio is separate hardware you set up once; Knit works fully without one. OPTIONAL INTERNET RELAYS To reach a contact who is never in radio range, switch on Internet relays: Knit parks a sealed copy on a small relay server, which hands it over the next time their phone connects. Off until you turn it on, behind a one-time disclosure of what a relay can see — your IP address, when you send, roughly how much — and cannot: your messages, who you talk to, or who is in a group. Choose your relays or run your own; both are public. Note: with no radio paired and relays off, Knit reaches people nearby, or the crowd between you. The public Nearby room is unencrypted by design — no fixed set of recipients — and is never uploaded.
First release: Aug 3, 2026, 9 total releases.
Most recent release: Sep 24, 2026.
Appears in 0 app stacks.
0 sats / 0 zaps received in the past year.
Sats Received
Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.
Zap Count
Underlying data available via MCP: app_zaps, app_releases.
Releases
- Sep 24, 2026 2.7.0Back up to one encrypted file, pause the mesh for an hour, and use less battery Settings now has Backup and restore. Your identity, contacts, groups and messages go into one encrypted file, locked by a recovery key Knit shows you once, and a new phone restores it from the welcome screen. Use it on one phone at a time; if the same backup lands on two, each one says so and offers to sign out. The mesh notification gains Pause 15 min and Pause 1 hour beside Stop, and the mesh comes back by itself, while Stop now keeps it off until you start it again. Also new: tapping a file someone sent you opens it, a long chat has a button back to the newest message, and a Meshtastic user who messages your board gets one automatic reply. A phone a parent or an organisation
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manages now says who can allow a permission it turned off. A quiet mesh costs less battery, with fewer Bluetooth sends and scans, fewer relay check-ins, and a content filter that unloads when nothing arrives. Fixed: an empty chat list for ten seconds on older phones, a Wi-Fi Aware radio that stopped passing messages after a busy chat, photos crossing Bluetooth three times, Wi-Fi dropping on some phones, a relay shown as connected behind a Wi-Fi that blocked it, missing link previews, the mesh staying down after a reboot, and searching over Wi-Fi stopping in the background on Android 10 to 12. --- **`knit-2.7.0.apk`** — `sha256:9e2c8440dfd08584932f726260526c59eb553f610805a4c362b16f22bc994b61` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.7.0.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Sep 16, 2026 2.6.0Search every chat, send big files phone to phone, and see what your mesh carried. Tap the magnifier above the chat list to find a chat, a contact, or a message by what it said, and open a result right on that message. A file too big to attach now goes to a nearby contact straight over Wi-Fi, phone to phone, and lands in their Downloads folder. The nearby count above the chat list opens Your mesh: what your phone passed along for others, what it is carrying right now, and how many people it has met, all counted on your phone and never sent anywhere. Also new: Material You dynamic colors and a light or dark setting of your own on Android 12 or newer, a message you didn't finish still there when you come back, sending where you are from a chat's menu, relay
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invite links, an About screen with the licenses, and a three-page setup. Direct and group chats now keep every message, people without a photo get their own colour, a group without one shows its members' faces, and Enter starts a new line. Fixed: a LoRa radio repeating what other radios had delivered, a relay that stalled Knit or kept a photo from arriving, a Nearby post's delivered tick that waited for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, crashes around a backup and under Restricted battery use, and blocking someone costing radio time. --- **`knit-2.6.0.apk`** — `sha256:48175e4692ee33804333b691fe1a937a9dfa9bbf3e6c04381b492582a15735ce` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.6.0.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Sep 11, 2026 2.5.1A LoRa radio that stopped sending, and a new group's first message that never arrived. Messages sent from several places at once could trip the queue that feeds the radio. Everything behind it then stayed unsent while the radio still showed as connected, and inbound messages kept arriving, so the only sign was that nothing you sent was getting through. Reopening the app cleared it until next time. Only phones with a Meshtastic radio paired were affected; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth carried messages normally throughout. The first message in a new group now reaches every member. Knit sent the key for that message a moment before it sent the group itself, so on a member's phone the key had nothing to attach to and was dropped;
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the group then showed up with no message in it, and the sender never saw a tick. The receiving phone now keeps that key until the group arrives, and the message opens as soon as it does. --- **`knit-2.5.1.apk`** — `sha256:364b81377dde7bf66bb66ffbe930c963fb840c85ad93409732436241429a8e73` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.5.1.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Sep 8, 2026 2.5.0A Meshtastic radio for reaching far past Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and files of any kind. Knit now talks to a Meshtastic LoRa radio over Bluetooth. Set the board up once and the Nearby room and your direct messages travel over it as well, so a contact kilometres away is in range. Your radio's own channel becomes a second room in Knit, which you can read, post to, or switch off. A contact's post there shows a shield when their radio signed it. Send any kind of file in a direct message or group chat, under the 8 MB limit photos already have. React with any emoji, not the six in the quick row. Paste a link and, when your phone is online, a card with the page's title and picture goes with it; that one is off until you turn it on, since fetching the card shows
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the website your IP address. Fixed: a long chat that opened on "No messages yet" and took its time, phones that only relayed for you counting as nearby, and a blank screen that only force-stopping the app could clear. --- **`knit-2.5.0.apk`** — `sha256:da1caff1f4b511f3248b10d925f49ecedfc245e2b008534b30c1a26db4ba318b` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.5.0.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Aug 31, 2026 2.4.0Voice notes, and optional Internet relays for when nobody is in radio range. Knit still works with no internet and no account. But a message to someone out of radio range used to wait for the two phones, or a chain of phones between them, to meet. Turn on Internet relays and Knit parks a sealed copy on a relay server, which hands it over the next time the other phone connects. It stays off until you switch it on, and a one-time explanation spells out what a relay can see — your IP address, when you send, roughly how much — and what it cannot: your messages, who you are talking to, or who else is in a group. Direct messages, group chats and photos all travel this way. Hold the microphone in a chat to record a voice note. Too far apart to scan each other's code? Share a
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contact link instead. Two people with the same name are now told apart by the alias Knit gives every device. Fixed: phones that shut Knit down seconds after opening, and a crash when Android restarts the mesh out of sight. --- **`knit-2.4.0.apk`** — `sha256:4aa65596385ccb28d64f6d934e6d2ec114d81f601ce7d05f3d9f52d54e4da0d7` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.4.0.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Aug 27, 2026 2.3.1Fixes Knit disappearing seconds after you open it, on phones whose Wi-Fi chip will not run Wi-Fi Aware. Some phones report Wi-Fi Aware as available and then refuse to hand it over while Wi-Fi is connected. Knit kept asking every three seconds, forever, and each attempt cost the system a little memory it never got back — so Android eventually stopped the app for asking too often, within a minute of opening it, over and over, with nothing in the logs to explain why. Knit now slows those attempts down and gives up on a radio that keeps refusing, then picks it up again if Wi-Fi Aware becomes usable. Bluetooth carried the mesh the whole time, which is why messages still went through on affected phones.
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--- **`knit-2.3.1.apk`** — `sha256:3a962ff0247b8c8c6b04534d67f13835489331922ae50df525e4d1c3b9894743` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.3.1.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Aug 24, 2026 2.3.0Forward secrecy for direct messages and group chats, encrypted receipts and reactions, and a camera inside the chat. Conversations between updated phones now re-key as they go and drop the old keys, so someone who records traffic today and gets hold of a phone later cannot read the earlier messages. Group chats gain the same property. A chat with a phone on an older version keeps working, and moves over once everyone updates. Delivery receipts and reactions are now sealed too, instead of readable by any phone relaying them. Long-press the attach button to take a photo without leaving the chat, or a message for "Message info" — when it was delivered, and who reacted with what. Crashes are now recorded on the device, redacted, for
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you to read and report yourself; nothing is uploaded. Fixed: saving a received photo to your gallery wrote an unopenable file, and a profile edit made just after first contact could stay invisible to the other phone for hours. --- **`knit-2.3.0.apk`** — `sha256:c28adcd16bf767a7a252949b8796a2d5e9d81189fcf0605e0d6c72c36b08f601` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.3.0.txt.gz` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Aug 13, 2026 2.2.3A themed launcher icon, and a launch screen that follows your device's light or dark theme. Knit's icon now supplies a monochrome layer, so on Android 13 and newer it takes on the colours of your themed-icon home screen instead of falling back to a generic shape. Starting Knit on a dark-themed device no longer flashes a white screen before the app appears. The launch screen now uses the same light or dark background as the rest of the app. ---
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**`knit-2.2.3.apk`** — `sha256:62136d7e1decc6719101a3803d1194f7df6ac5b90c21f92f2297c4a9201d91ec` Signed with Knit's distribution key (certificate `b18a283d11797c2a84a008c1fcb9e1b864e7b4c3b301408f7a4a80624b0e631c`), the key pinned in F-Droid's `AllowedAPKSigningKeys`. CI verified this file is byte-identical, apart from the signature, to an independent unsigned rebuild produced inside F-Droid's own buildserver image — so F-Droid's rebuild-and-compare check resolves to exactly this APK. `mapping-2.2.3.txt` is the R8 deobfuscation map for symbolicating crash reports from this build. - Aug 3, 2026 2.2.2