Tips and tricks for Threema
The Swiss app is one of the best – and most secure – alternatives to Whatsapp. In daily use, it has a few rough edges, but you don’t have to be intimidated by them.
–Because address books are not uploaded automatically, contact management with Threema is a little more complex than with the competition.
Photo: Matthias Schuessler
the Swiss army relies on Threema and banned the other messengers – especially Whatsapp. That’s a good decision, even if one can ask how the army could ever allow the communication app from the Facebook group: Because when it comes to security and data protection, there are legitimate concerns about Whatsapp. Threema, on the other hand, relied on encryption from the start and on leaving as few data traces as possible. This makes the app secure, but also a bit stubborn to use.
Data storage on the device
With Threema, all important information about your user account is stored on your smartphone. This is a major difference from many other messengers, where this information is stored on the operators’ servers and is accessible via your user login.
On the one hand, it has the advantage that the operator knows almost nothing about you. This comes with the disadvantage that your chats, contacts and groups are lost if your mobile phone is lost or the app is deleted. That’s why you should protect yourself: In the app under “My Profile” you will find the “Threema Safe” option, which you can use to set up regular data backups. By default, the is stored on a Threema server, but you can also specify your own.
–Whatsapp (left) and Threema (right) do almost the same thing – but in very different ways.
Photo: Matthias Schuessler
Even if you switch to a new mobile phone, you have to arrange for a transfer of your data. Threema provides instructions for this in the support article «I have a new mobile phone – how do I transfer my data?».
Protection of contacts
A special feature is that the app does not upload the entire address book to the server like other messengers to find contacts who also use Threema. It is possible to carry out this comparison – but since it is optional, many users do without it. If you want to use it, you will find the option “Synchronize contacts” in the settings under “Privacy”. The contacts are not transmitted in plain form, but as a “hash” key: it makes it possible to determine a match, but does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the name or address.
This extra protection for the address book means that you have to enter many of your important contacts yourself. You do this by asking for the Threema ID of your contacts, which you add under “Contacts”. If you have an entry for the person in your address book, you can link it in Threema using the “Linked contact” item.
To pass on your own ID to friends and acquaintances, tap on the share symbol in the “Threema ID” section in the “My profile” section and forward the information by e-mail (or Whatsapp). You will also find a QR code next to your profile picture: If you tap on it, it will fill the screen and can be scanned like a digital business card. And if you want, you can have it printed on your real business card.
What do the dots on the contacts mean?
In the list of contacts, Threema displays three colored dots for each entry. It shows how sure you can be that the person you suspect is behind the ID is actually behind it. Contacts with a red dot were added anonymously by ID and are not linked to an email address. Contacts with two dots in orange have been identified by phone number or email address. Three green dots mean that you scanned the person’s QR code yourself and were able to determine for yourself who you are dealing with.
–The dots next to a name indicate how certain you can be that the contact is the right person.
Photo: Screenshot
By the way: A contact in gray letters belongs to a user whose cell phone hasn’t contacted the Threema server for more than three months. The most likely case is that he now has a new ID that you need to know to message. If an entry is crossed out, the user in question has revoked his ID, ie irrevocably deleted it.
You can remove inactive entries by swiping from right to left. You can also hide them in the settings under «Appearance».
Update group chats
Since messages in group chats are also transmitted in encrypted form and are not permanently stored on the servers, it can happen that not all participants in group chats are on the same page. This is expressed, for example, by a different name for the chat or by an incorrect group picture. The creator of the group can correct this by tapping on the top of the participants’ pictures and clicking on the “Synchronize group” command in the “Group details” view.
In the settings for a group or individual chat, you also have the option of switching notifications for this chat on or off and saving the exchanged messages via “Export chat”.
Save storage space and set the quality for photos and videos
And two final tips: In the settings under “Storage management” you can see how much space the messages and media are taking up. To free up capacity, you can delete messages or even videos and photos after a certain period of time.
You can control whether the photos and videos that are sent to you are automatically added to your photos in the settings under “Media” using the option “Save media automatically in photos app”. Here you also determine the image size and video quality in which your media will be sent.
Matthias Schuessler is a digital editor and reports on the latest from tech companies, software and hardware, and provides support for the confident use of smartphones, computers and gadgets.
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