Notifications

rChat checks for messages from time to time while it’s closed, when iOS lets it, and shows a local alert for each new message. There is no notification server: nothing is sent to Apple and the developer runs no service. Alerts are best effort.

How it works

When rChat goes to the background, it asks iOS for a background refresh about 15 minutes later. iOS decides when (and whether) to run it, based on how you use your phone. When it runs, rChat:

1. loads your account (readable after the phone’s first unlock);
2. connects to your relay and proves its identity, as on any connection;
3. collects the messages and requests the relay was holding for you, decrypts them with the conversations’ saved state and stores them;
4. posts an alert for each new one;
5. disconnects, and asks iOS for the next check.

During a check, rChat opens no conversations and sends no messages, receipts, cover or steady traffic. Delivered receipts for what it stored are sent the next time you open rChat, so your contacts see Delivered then. The relay sees a short connection with no conversations, like an ordinary connect.

For about 30 seconds after you leave rChat, it also finishes sending what is in flight and alerts you to messages that arrive in that time.

What alerts show

Settings → Notifications → Show in alerts:

Choice	Title	Text
Name only (default)	The contact’s name	New message
Nothing	rChat	New message
Name and message	The contact’s name	The first 100 characters of the message, cleaned

• Photos, voice messages and files say “Photo”, “Voice message” or “File”, never the file name.
• A message request always says “New message request”, with no name and no text, whatever you choose: the sender is not one of your contacts.
• With “Name and message”, iOS keeps the message text in its list of notifications, outside rChat’s encrypted storage, until you open the chat or clear the alert.
• Alerts are grouped by contact, and the app icon’s badge shows your unread count. After 5 alerts in one check, rChat shows one summary such as “8 new messages”.
• Tapping an alert opens the conversation. The alert carries only which contact it is for, never message content, keys or your relay’s address.
• In a chat with a disappearing-message timer, the alert is removed when the message disappears.

rChat asks for permission to show alerts the first time you open a conversation, not when you first install it.

What is never alerted

Receipts, dummy (cover or steady) packets, session notices and session setup never produce an alert. Nothing is alerted twice. Blocked senders, deleted or unknown contacts and muted contacts produce no alert. While rChat is open, a banner appears only for a conversation that is not on screen.

Limits

• Timing. Alerts come when iOS lets rChat check, which can be minutes or hours after a message was sent.
• Force-quit. After you force-quit rChat (swipe it away in the app switcher), there are no alerts until you open it again.
• Restart. There are no alerts before you first unlock your phone after a restart, because the keys can’t be read until then.
• Muted contacts don’t produce alerts.