We built Kept because we got tired of making the same trade-off every other messaging app asks you to make: hand your conversations over to a company, trust their privacy policy, and hope for the best.
Today we are launching Kept publicly. It is a private messaging app where your messages live on your own personal data pod, not on centeralized servers. Nobody at Kept can read your conversations. There is no advertising, no data harvesting, and no algorithm deciding what you see. Just you and the people you trust.
Getting Your Friends and Family on Kept Takes About 30 Seconds
One of the things we are most proud of is how easy it is to invite someone. You do not need to know their username, find them in a directory, or convince them to download an app before you can talk.
Here is how it works:
1. Open Kept and tap the add person button.
2. Give the conversation a name and create it.
3. Kept generates a personal invite link, like `kept.privatedatapod.com/?invite=abc123`.
4. Copy that link and send it however you like: a text message, an email, a note in a group chat.
When the person on the other end taps the link, they land on a page that shows your name and lets them create an account in one step. If they already have a Private Data Pod account, they are added to the conversation immediately. No app store, no onboarding flow, no friction.
This makes Kept genuinely easy to share with people who are not tech-savvy. Send your mom the link. Send it to the family group chat. Anyone can tap a link.
How Kept Is Different From Other Messaging Apps
Most messaging apps say they respect your privacy. Here is what that usually means in practice: your messages are encrypted in transit, but the company’s servers store and can access everything. They know who you talk to, how often, and for how long. That data is used to improve their products, target advertising, or comply with legal requests.
Kept is built on a different foundation.
Your messages are stored on your pod, not ours. Every Kept user has a personal data pod at privatedatapod.com. When you start a conversation, it lives in a shared folder on your pod. We never hold a centeralized copy on a server. If you close your account, the conversation is gone.
We cannot read your messages. Pro subscribers can turn on end-to-end encryption for any conversation. When encryption is on, every message is encrypted in your browser before it is sent. Not even privatedatapod.com can read the contents. For non-encrypted conversations, messages are stored on your pod and protected by your account credentials, but not encrypted at rest.
There is no business model built on your data. We do not sell ads. We do not train AI on your conversations. We do not have a data broker relationship. The product is the subscription, not you.
No central conversation database. There is no Private Data Pod-owned database of your messages. The person who creates a conversation hosts it on their pod. If two people are talking, the messages exist in one place: the creator’s pod. That is it.
How the Security Works
End-to-End Encryption (Pro)
Pro subscribers can enable end-to-end encryption when creating a conversation. Once it is on, every message is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it leaves the browser. The encryption key for each conversation is wrapped individually for each participant using ECDH-P256, so only the people in the conversation can read it.
Non-Pro users can be invited into encrypted conversations. The first time you open an encrypted space, you will be asked to set a passphrase. That passphrase protects your copy of the encryption key, and from that point on everything is encrypted and decrypted locally in your browser.
Pro Accounts: No Passphrase Required
Pro users get a smoother experience. Your identity key is stored in your browser’s secure key storage (IndexedDB via the WebCrypto API), separate from ordinary JavaScript storage. When you open an encrypted conversation, Kept retrieves the key silently. No passphrase prompt, no friction. The security is still end-to-end: your private key never leaves your device.
Recovery Codes
For non-Pro users with encrypted conversations, Kept generates a recovery code when your identity keypair is first created. It looks like this:
A3F2-91BD-C740-E8A1-2B3D-FA09-67CE-5401
A copy of your key wrapped with this recovery code is stored on your own pod. If you forget your passphrase or switch devices, you can use the recovery code to restore access from anywhere. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.
What Kept Cannot Do
- Read your messages. The server stores only encrypted data for Pro conversations.
- Recover your account if you lose both your passphrase and recovery code. There is no backdoor.
- See the content of who you are talking to or what you are saying.
- Use your conversations for advertising or AI training.
Try Kept
Kept is available now at kept.privatedatapod.com. Creating an account is free. Pro subscriptions unlock end-to-end encryption, hardware-backed key storage, and priority support.
If you want private conversations with the people you trust, send them a link. That is all it takes.