Tour through twonly
twonly does more than send photos. Play games in your chats, turn your photos into stickers, follow your friends’ trips on a map and much more. Here are the features that are easy to overlook, and where to find them.
Challenge your friends to 8-Ball Pool, Chess, Connect Four, Mills or Sea Battle, right in your chat. No extra app, no account, no ads: start a round whenever you have a minute and pick it up again later.
Where to find it: Open a chat with a friend, tap + and then App.
Turn any photo into a sticker: cut out a friend, your pet or your latest inside joke and send it in any chat. You can create stickers in three places:
React in one tap with the emojis you actually use. Choose up to 12 favourites. They appear when you long-press a message and while you look at a photo or video.
Where to find it: Settings > Chats & camera > Quick reactions.
Show your real face only to the people you know. Next to your drawn public avatar, you can add a personal photo avatar and decide who sees it: only your contacts, or everyone.
Where to find it: Settings > Profile > Customize your avatar > Personal avatar.
Give any contact a name you recognise at a glance. Nicknames are only visible to you.
Where to find it: Open the contact and tap Nickname.
Sort your contacts into groups like Family, Climbing or Uni, and use them all over the app: as labels, as shortcuts when sharing, as the audience of a story and as a widget on your home screen. More in the help: Contact groups.
Where to find it: Settings > Chats & camera > Contact Groups.
A colored label next to each member shows the group at a glance.
When you share a photo, tap the group’s emoji to select all members at once. Or post a story only to that group, so your climbing photos reach your climbing friends and nobody else.
Put a group on your home screen and see the newest photos your friends send to it, without opening the app. More in the help: Home screen widget.
Taking a break from your phone? Turn on On Vacation and your flames are frozen until you’re back: they can’t be lost, but they don’t grow either. Your friends see a short note that you’re away.
Where to find it: Settings > Chats & camera > On Vacation.
For photos that are meant for one person only. Turn on the shield with the heart before sending, and your friend has to unlock the photo with their fingerprint or face. Until then it waits in the chat as a wrapped present.
Where to find it: In the editor, before you send the photo: the shield with the heart.
Missed a detail? Open a photo a second time, including photos you sent yourself. Your friend sees that you looked again, so nothing happens behind anyone’s back.
Photos with a timer and photos sent as a real twonly can’t be opened again.
Where to find it: Long-press the photo in the chat and tap View again.
Meeting up? Share your live location in a chat for as long as you choose, and stop at any time. Only your latest position is kept, and it’s end-to-end encrypted like everything else in twonly.
Where to find it: In a chat, tap + and then Location.
See where your friends’ stories were taken. Stories with a location appear on a map, so you can follow a friend’s trip from stop to stop. Your own location is only added when you tap the pin in the editor.
Where to find it: At the start of the stories, at the top of your chat list.
Relive your trips by place. With Store location in Memories turned on, twonly saves where you took each photo or video and shows them on a map. The location stays in your Memories and is never sent to your contacts.
Where to find it: Settings > Memories > Store location in Memories.
Keep your Memories safe, even if you lose your phone. With a plan, every photo and video is encrypted on your phone before it’s uploaded, so only you can see it. When you get a new phone, your Memories come with you.
More in the help: Memories Backup.
Where to find it: Settings > Memories > Memories Backup.
Bring your saved Snapchat Memories with you, with their dates and locations. The importer runs in your browser and encrypts everything before it’s uploaded. It can only add Memories: it never sees, changes or deletes the ones you already have.
More in the blog post: how the encrypted import works.
Where to find it: Open import.twonly.eu on your computer and connect it with the twonly camera.
Lost your phone and forgot your password? Choose a few trusted friends who can help you get your account back. Each of them keeps an encrypted part of your key. When you need it, enough of them confirm, and your account is restored. A PIN or your email adds a second layer of protection.
Read how it works in the blog post Introducing Passwordless Backups, or in the help: Passwordless Backup.
Where to find it: Settings > Backup > Via trusted friends.
twonly doesn’t use phone numbers, so a badge shows who you’re really talking to. Scan a friend’s QR code when you meet, and their badge turns green. Blue means one of your contacts has verified them, red means nobody has yet. Can’t meet? Compare the safety number instead.
More in the help: Verifying your friends’ identity.
Where to find it: Tap the badge next to a name, or tap Verify now in a chat with someone you haven’t verified yet.
twonly is free, without ads and without selling your data. The servers are funded by the people who subscribe.
A plan adds end-to-end encrypted storage for your Memories, including an import of your Snapchat Memories. With Pro you can add 1 more person to your plan, with Family 4.
Where to find it: Settings > Subscription.
Have an idea or found a bug? Use the feedback option in the app or email me. Your feedback helps shape what I build next.
