Aura, clearly explained.

No. Aura identities do not create an open inbox. Communication begins through a permission-controlled relationship — a Reach Contract — not by anyone knowing your address.

It depends on which Aura you are using, and the difference is material.

Android: your identity and device private keys are generated and held on the phone, in the platform's secure storage. All encryption and decryption happens there.

Desktop (macOS, Linux): the desktop app runs a small Aura process on your own machine that holds the keys and does the encryption. The keys stay on your computer.

Hosted web at app.auratt.com: the keys are not in your browser. The browser page has no encryption code in it; a server-side Aura process that we operate holds your device private keys and encrypts and decrypts on your behalf. That means the operator of that server is technically able to see your message content. It is a real convenience and a real trade-off, and we would rather say so than let a padlock imply otherwise. If that trust boundary does not work for you, use Android or the desktop app.

The security page sets out the same split in more detail.

Yes. Each device has independent keys and can be revoked separately. Use device linking for routine additions and reserve the recovery key for total device loss.

Revoke it. Every device has independent signing and encryption keys, so a compromised or lost device can be cut off without touching your identity or your other devices. Adding a routine replacement device requires approval from an existing authorized device; catastrophic recovery uses a separate recovery key.

Four, today: Android (direct APK download), macOS, Linux, and the hosted web app. There is no Windows build published and no iOS app — it has never been built or released. Anywhere you see iOS or Windows mentioned as available, that is an error on our side, not a build you can get.

Web and desktop are the same application: desktop is that web app in a native shell, with the Aura process running locally instead of on our server. Android is a separate, larger application, so feature coverage is not identical across the two — appointments, group calls and push wake-up, for example, are Android-only today. The downloads page lists what exists.

The routing server receives encrypted envelopes and attachments rather than plaintext content. It can still observe the limited metadata required for delivery — identifiers, timestamps, delivery state, object class, and ciphertext size.

But on the hosted web app the encryption itself happens in a server-side process we run, not in your browser, so plaintext exists on our infrastructure at that moment. On Android and desktop it does not. See "Where are my keys?" above — that is the honest answer to this question, and it is different per surface.

Limited routing metadata: identity and contract identifiers, timestamps, delivery state, object class, and ciphertext size — the minimum needed to move an encrypted envelope from sender to recipient. On Android and desktop, message content, attachment keys and Vault contents never leave your device unencrypted. On the hosted web app, encryption happens in a server-side process we operate, so that exception applies there.

Push notifications on Android travel through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and contain a wake-up identifier only, never message content. The privacy policy lists everything collected, in full.

On Android, Settings has both: "Export my data" and "Delete my account". Deletion is irreversible and wipes the device as well. The account deletion page gives the exact steps, what deletion does and does not erase, and how to request deletion if you no longer have the app installed.

Through the support page. Read it before you need it: it is honest about what contact channels are live today and what response time you should expect, and it covers the one case that cannot wait — a safety number that does not match.