X begins testing standalone X Chat app on iOS

Social network X is bringing its private messaging service, dubbed X Chat, to a standalone app. The company on Monday said the initial beta of the X Chat app was being made available to 1,000 users through Apple’s TestFlight testing platform. The beta program had reached full capacity two hours after the announcement. According to an X post by xAI product designer Michael Boswell, the company will expand the beta beyond the initial 1,000 users “soon,” though he didn’t offer an ETA. “For the past few months, we’ve been quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS,” Boswell wrote on X. “Use it. Break it. We want your feedback,” he said. X Chat is X’s upgraded version of X’s existing DM (direct messages) feature, which the company claims is end-to-end encrypted. Security experts, however, have warned potential users that the X Chat service is less secure than other encrypted messaging apps, like Signal, and should not be trusted. It’s not clear whether the company has addressed the security community’s concerns in the standalone app. The introduction of the app represents a decided shift away from X owner Elon Musk’s earlier plan to make X an “everything app,” that would provide access to messaging, payments, creator content, and more, centralizing all aspects of the service. Just downloaded the standalone 𝕏 Chat app to test 😎Cool login screen pic.twitter.com/boXS082la0— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) March 3, 2026 A handful of early testers have begun sharing screenshots of the app’s interface. One user said the beta version of the app had stylized the name as xChat instead of X Chat, which could suggest a potential rebranding. Others began sharing screenshots from the app, like the login screen, which has a starry background. Early users describe the app as a simple, smoother interface for using X Chat compared with the X app. The current version of the app doesn’t include message requests, but Boswell says that’s being rebuilt now. xAI’s Grok responded to questions about the new app on X, confirming other details like the app’s age rating, which will be the same as X (17+ on the iOS App Store), and that chats would sync to the X app and the chat.x.com web app, which launched in December 2025. The AI chatbot also noted that an Android version of the X Chat app was expected “very soon.” I got access to XChat beta! Time to test the hell out of it and see if I can find any bugs. I will already say a great addition to X chat would be a XSpaces feature. Turn it into a discord like app with chat, images, video, and also live video/voice chat! pic.twitter.com/CQ6xfQ4JcB— Overly Trev (@OverlyTrev) March 3, 2026 Topics App, Apps, Apps, Social, Twitter, X, X Chat Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal.

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