Get the apps

The desktop app

Download it from snug.chat: a DMG for Mac, an installer for Windows, and an AppImage or a .deb for Ubuntu. What snug supports lists the system versions.

What the desktop app adds:

• Push to talk, mute, and deafen work from any app, even mid-game. Set them in Settings > Hotkeys. On macOS, the app first asks for Accessibility permission.
• Your call keeps going while the window is minimized. The menu bar or tray icon mutes, deafens, and leaves voice. To stay in the call after you close the window, turn that on in Settings > Desktop.
• On Windows, a screen share can carry the shared app's sound. A share from a Mac or Ubuntu carries video only.
• A popped-out call stays above your other windows while snug is minimized.
• Updates download inside the app. The AppImage replaces itself, and the .deb may ask for your administrator password. Pick up an update covers the update control.
• When a server doesn't answer, connection details gathers what someone helping you needs.

Add a snug server to the desktop app

The first time you open the app, type the address under server address and select connect. With an invite link, open it in your browser and choose open this invitation in the app instead.

To add another server or switch between them, choose Switch snug server… from the menu bar or tray icon, or switch server under Settings > Account. Each server keeps its own sign-in, and switching never signs you out of another.

The phone app

Get it from the App Store for iPhone and iPad on iOS 16.4 or newer, or from Google Play on Android 7.0 or newer. In the phone app:

• Your call keeps going while you use other apps or lock the phone. Your camera pauses while snug is in the background and comes back when you return.
• Watch a friend's screen share full screen, or share your phone's screen without sound.
• Phone notifications reach you even while the app is closed: mentions, replies, pokes, direct messages sent to ping you, and channels you set to every message. Turn them on in Settings > Notifications. If the server's host hasn't set them up, that page says so.
• Share a link, picture, or file from another app into a snug message. You check the draft before it sends.
• Messages you write while offline send once you're back online.

The phone app has no hotkeys or pop-out call window. Admins export and clean up old messages from the desktop app or a browser.

The phone app joins snug servers released since 3.17.1. On an older one it asks for a server update, and a browser still works there.

Add a snug server to the phone app

Open an invite link on your phone and choose open this invitation in the app, or paste the link into snug address in the app. Without a link, type the server's address there.

Each server keeps its own sign-in. To add another, open Settings and choose add a snug under snugs on this phone. The same list switches between them.

The browser

Every snug server serves snug to Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, in their current and previous major versions. Open the server's address or an invite link, and there's nothing to install. It's how a friend with only a link joins.

On a computer, the browser does nearly everything the desktop app does. Hotkeys work only while the snug tab is active, and whether a screen share carries sound depends on what the browser offers.

On a phone browser, messages, files, calls, cameras, and watching a screen share work while the browser stays in front. It can't start a screen share or send notifications. For those, use the phone app.

After a browser hands one snug link to an app, it sends that snug's later links to the app on its own. always use the browser stops that.