Messages — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 November 2026

In short

Messages keeps your messages on your phone. We never receive what you write, who you write to or your contacts, and we never sell data.

  • Your messages stay on your phone. SMS, drafts, locked chats, saved cards and notes are stored only on your device. The app has no server of its own.
  • Contacts and SIM details are read on the phone only, to show names, photos and the SIM that sends.
  • Usage statistics, nothing more. The app tells us which screens and features are used, through Google Analytics for Firebase. Never the content of a message, a phone number, a name or a search.
  • No ads, no advertising ID. The app shows no ads and does not collect your advertising ID.
  • You can turn usage statistics off at any time: Settings > About > Share usage statistics.

Who we are

Messages is an SMS app for Android, published on Google Play as com.namsolutions.messages by Nelson Munguambe, Maputo, Mozambique (“we”, “us”). We decide what usage statistics the app collects and why, so we are responsible for them.

This policy covers the Messages app. Questions or requests about your privacy: thenamsolutions@gmail.com.

Your messages stay on your phone

Everything you write and receive stays on your device. We have no copy, cannot read it and cannot restore it for you.

  • SMS. As your default SMS app, Messages reads, saves and sends SMS through Android’s own SMS database on your phone. Other SMS apps you choose can read that database too.
  • Locked chats. Their messages are moved out of Android’s SMS database into a private, encrypted store inside the app. If you reset a forgotten lock code, they are deleted.
  • Drafts, scheduled messages, reminders, saved cards and notes are saved in the app’s private storage, encrypted. A reminder keeps a copy of the message it is about.
  • To start quickly, the app also keeps the top of your inbox and your contacts’ names and photos in its private storage on the phone.
  • Chat backgrounds. A photo you choose for a chat comes through Android’s photo picker, which gives the app only that photo. The app keeps its own copy in its private storage and deletes it when you remove the background.
  • Search runs on the phone. What you type is never sent anywhere.
  • Screen effects (Messages Plus) are picked on the phone, from the words of a message, such as a birthday wish. Which effect plays is never sent.
  • Sending goes through your mobile carrier, like any SMS, and uses your carrier plan. MMS and RCS are not supported.

Uninstalling Messages deletes the app’s own data, including locked chats, drafts, reminders, saved cards, notes and chat backgrounds. Your other SMS stay in Android’s SMS database.

What the app uses on your phone, and why

Each permission serves one feature. Only usage statistics (the last row) ever leave the phone, and never what you write.

PermissionWhat Messages uses it forLeaves your phone?
SMS (read, receive, send; receive MMS notices)Show, receive and send your messages as the default SMS appOnly the SMS you send, to the recipient through your carrier
ContactsShow names and photos instead of numbers; find a contact to messageNo
Phone (phone state)List your SIMs, show which carrier sends, switch SIMNo
NotificationsAnnounce new messages, reminders and failed sends; reply or mark as read from the notificationNo (shown in your car only if you use Android Auto)
BiometricsConfirm a chat lock with your fingerprint, face or screen lockNo: Android checks it, and the app never receives it
Alarms and reminders, run at startupSend scheduled messages and show reminders on time, also after a restartNo
Ignore battery optimisation (request)Ask Android to keep receiving messages in the backgroundNo
VibrationAnnounce a locked chat’s message by vibration, if you choose itNo
Internet, network state, Play install referrerSend usage statistics; tell which Play link the app was installed fromYes: see Usage statistics

As the default SMS app, Messages can also read and change Android’s list of blocked numbers, on the phone. You can take back a permission at any time in Android’s settings. The app then keeps working without that feature, for example showing numbers instead of names.

Usage statistics

Unless you turn them off, the app sends usage statistics to Google Analytics for Firebase, a Google service we use to see how Messages is used. They help us find what people use, what confuses them and what fails, so we can improve the app.

What is sent

  • The screens you open, and how long you spend on each.
  • The features and buttons you use, for example sending a message, pinning a chat or opening a menu. We record that it happened, the option you picked (for example a reminder for tomorrow, or a photo as a chat’s background), how many chats it involved and where in the app it was done, never the content.
  • Errors the app shows you, such as a message that could not be sent.
  • Your app settings and access, for example language, theme, text size, number of SIMs, and whether contacts access and notifications are on.
  • What Google Analytics collects with any app: device model, Android version, app version, language, approximate location (country, region, city), first use, sessions and time in the app, and the Google Play link the app was installed from.
  • Random identifiers that Firebase creates for this installation of the app, to count it once. They are not linked to your name or number.

Google estimates the location from your connection’s IP address. For users in the EU, Switzerland and the UK, Google says it discards the IP address straight after and does not store it.

What is never sent

  • The text of any message, draft, note or saved card.
  • Phone numbers, contact names or photos.
  • What you search for, and your lock code.
  • Which chats you lock, or how many. Chat lock is counted like other features, for example that a chat was locked, but nothing marks you as someone who uses it.
  • Your carrier’s name, your advertising ID or your Android ID. Ad personalisation is switched off.

Turning it off. Go to Settings > About and turn off Share usage statistics. Nothing more is sent, nothing about the change is sent, and the analytics identifiers on your phone are deleted. If you turn it on again, the app counts as a new installation. Debug and test versions of the app never send statistics.

How long it is kept. Google keeps the statistics for 14 months, then deletes them. An installation’s random identifiers (above) are kept until 14 months after the app was last used on it. Reports we keep longer show totals only, such as the number of people who used a feature. Google processes the data under Google’s Privacy Policy, possibly on servers outside your country.

Who else receives data

We do not sell, rent or trade any data, and we show no ads. Only these parties receive anything, each for one reason:

  • Google, our service provider for usage statistics (above). It receives nothing else from the app.
  • Your mobile carrier, which delivers the SMS you send and receive, as with any SMS app. If you turn on delivery reports (Settings > Chats), your carrier also tells the app when a message arrived. Your carrier’s own privacy policy applies.
  • Android Auto, only if you use it and keep Messages in Android Auto on (Settings > Notifications). It shows your new messages on the car’s screen. Locked chats never appear there.
  • Your phone’s own backup, if you use one (for example Google One). It may back up Android’s SMS database. Messages leaves its own data out of Android’s cloud backup, so locked chats, drafts, reminders, saved cards and notes are not backed up.

We would disclose information only if the law required it. We hold no messages or contacts, so the only data we could ever disclose is usage statistics.

Messages Plus

Messages Plus, the paid plan, is bought and managed through Google Play. Google handles the payment under Google Play’s terms and Google’s Privacy Policy. We never see your card or payment details, only whether your subscription is active. Its features (chat lock, themes, app icons, chat backgrounds and screen effects) work on the phone like the rest of the app. Opening the offer screen and starting a subscription are counted in usage statistics.

How your data is protected

There is no Messages server to break into: your messages exist only on your phone.

  • Encryption on the phone. Locked chats, drafts, scheduled messages, reminders, saved cards and notes are encrypted with AES-GCM. The key is itself encrypted by a key that stays in Android Keystore, in the phone’s secure hardware where it has one, so a copy of the app’s files is unreadable on another device.
  • No cloud backup. The app’s own data is left out of Android’s cloud backup. A direct transfer to a new phone may copy the app’s files, but the encrypted ones cannot be read there, because the key never leaves the old phone.
  • Locked chats stay out of sight. While the locked space is open, it is kept out of screenshots, screen recordings and the recent-apps preview. Leaving the app locks it again.
  • Encrypted transfer. Usage statistics travel to Google over an encrypted connection.

Anyone who can unlock your phone can open the SMS apps on it. Chat lock and your phone’s screen lock are your protection there.

Your choices and rights

You control your data from the phone itself, and you can ask us about the rest.

  • Stop usage statistics: Settings > About > Share usage statistics. This also deletes the analytics identifiers on your phone.
  • Delete what is on the phone: delete chats in the app, or uninstall it. Uninstalling, or Android Settings > Apps > Messages > Storage > Clear storage, removes the app’s own data. Locked chats’ messages are then gone for good.
  • Take back a permission: Android Settings > Apps > Messages > Permissions.
  • Ask us about usage statistics: write to thenamsolutions@gmail.com. Statistics are not linked to your name or number, so we usually cannot find a single person’s data. Turning statistics off ensures nothing new can be linked to what was sent before.

Depending on where you live, data-protection law may give you the right to access, correct or delete personal data, to object to its use, and to complain to your data-protection authority. Contact us to use any of these rights; we reply within 15 days.

Children

Messages is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data about them. The usage statistics are the same for everyone and never include what anyone writes. If you believe a child’s data reached us, contact us and we will delete what we can find.

Changes to this policy

This policy takes effect on 6 November 2026. If we change it, we will post the new version here with its date. If a change affects what data leaves your phone, we will also say so in the app or in its Google Play listing before it applies.