Olvid

Olvid is a private and secure end-to-end encrypted messenger.

Contrary to most other messaging applications, Olvid does not rely on a central directory to connect users. As there is no user directory, Olvid does not require access to your contacts and can function without any personal information. The absence of directory also prevents unsolicited messages and spam.

Because of this, from a security standpoint, Olvid is not "yet another secure messenger". Olvid guarantees the total and definitive confidentiality of exchanges, relying solely on the mutual trust of interlocutors. This implies that your privacy does not depend on the integrity of some server. This makes Olvid very different from other messengers that typically rely on some "Trusted Third Party", like a centralized database of users or a public blockchain.

Note that this doesn't mean that Olvid uses no servers (it does). It means that you do not have to trust them: your privacy is ensured by cryptographic protocols running on the client-side (i.e., on your device), and these protocols assume that the servers were compromised from day one. Even then, your privacy is ensured 😊.

Help and documentation

If you need help using Olvid, first have a look at our FAQ at https://olvid.io/faq/. We also have a few short tutorial videos available in English and in French.

If you are looking for technical documentation, have a look at our technology page where you can find some technical specifications and the reports of the audits Olvid went through to get its CSPN certifications.

Send us feedback

If you find a bug, or have any feedback about Olvid, please contact the team at Olvid at [email protected]. They will be glad to hear your suggestions.

Structure of the project

Olvid is built of two main components:

• a cryptographic engine, written in pure Java (no Android APIs) located in the obv_engine folder
• an application layer, using the Android APIs for the graphical interface and OS integration , locate in the obv_messenger folder

The engine is in charge of all the encryption, contacts and groups management, and network communications, while the application layer implements the instant messaging functionalities on top of the engine.

As of now, the code is not fully documented and contains very few comments. Still, some aspects of it are very advanced and might be hard getting into. We encourage you to read the code, understand it and make your own modifications and additions. But keep in mind that some mechanisms are rather "fragile" and might break easily 🥚🥚🥚. The Olvid team is doing its best to improve your experience using this code and will try to improve these aspects in future releases.

Building Olvid from the sources

Olvid is available on Google Play or can be compiled from the source. You will get the same app, with the exact same features, but building it from the sources will require a little more work 😁 The Olvid team will do its best to publish the sources of any new version available on Google Play to this repository as soon as possible.

To build Olvid, you will need the latest version of Android Studio.

• clone this repository
• open the project located in obv_messenger in Android Studio (we know, this is weird, but for historic reasons the root project is not at the root of the repository!)
• prepare an emulator or plug in your phone and press "Run app"

Compiling and running Olvid should work straight out of the box. If you run into issues, please contact us at [email protected].

⚠ WARNING ⚠: if you want to run Olvid on your device and already have Olvid installed from Google Play, make sure to change the applicationId or add an applicationIdSuffix in the productFlavors of the main build.gradle to avoid overwriting your app. Or at least, test your build on an emulator before overwriting your app 😂

Push notifications and nogoogle flavor

Olvid provides 2 different build flavors: a full version including some Google closed sources libraries (like Firebase, Billing, Google drive API) and a nogoogle version containing only FOSS dependencies.

The full version is the one distributed on Google Play. Unfortunately, even if you have Google Services installed on your device, you will not be able to get push notifications when compiling this version from the sources. The Olvid server uses specific credentials to send push notifications, and these credentials are tied to the signature of the "official" Google Play version of Olvid. You may activate the "Maintain a permanent WebSocket connection" option in the privacy settings of the app in order to be notified instantly of new messages.

The WebRTC library

Olvid uses a slightly patched version of WebRTC for its secure audio & video calls, allowing the use of an HTTP/HTTPS proxy on networks where UDP is blocked and a proxy is mandatory.

This version of the library, and instructions on how to recompile from the official WebRTC sources can be found in a separate Olvid WebRTC for Android repository.

The SQLite-JDBC library

Olvid also comes with a modified version of the SQLite-JDBC library, also integrating SQLCipher for database encryption. Compared to the original version we simply:

• make changes to the build script to also build an amr64-v8a version of the library
• enable the legacy_alter_table pragma that is used in some migration operation of the engine
• remove most of the OS/arch discovery mechanisms found in OSInfo.java that can be seen as "intrusive"
• simplify the native library loading mechanism as the libsqlitejdbc.so is no longer bundled in the jar, but directly provided in the standard Android folder (this decreases the size of the APK as only the required lib is included)

Instructions on how to compile this library from the sources can be found in the Olvid version of the SQLite JDBC Driver repository.

Contributing to Olvid

Olvid, as a company, has not yet put in place all the necessary processes to easily accept external contributions. In particular, a Contributor License Agreement should be made available at some point in time. Until then, please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to contribute.

License

Olvid for Android is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. The full license is available in LICENSE.

Olvid for Android
Copyright © 2019-2026 Olvid SAS

Olvid is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3,
as published by the Free Software Foundation.

Olvid is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
along with Olvid.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.