A Delta Chat client for GNOME — chat over email, decentralized and encrypted.
Lightweight Vala + GTK4 + libadwaita desktop client that talks to deltachat-rpc-server over JSON-RPC. Follows GNOME HIG, works on desktop and mobile form factors.
- Rich compose bar — multi-line text, file attachments via picker or drag-and-drop, paste images or files straight from the clipboard.
- Reply, edit, delete, forward — full message actions via right-click; delete-for-self or delete-for-everyone on your own messages.
- Emoji reactions — quick-pick 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 👎 shown as badges on the message.
- Pinned messages — pin any message in a chat; a pinned-messages bar at the top of the conversation lets you jump back to them.
- Reply previews — quoted sender and text preview (capped at 3 lines) above the compose entry and inside bubbles.
- Inline image previews with a full-screen viewer (click to open, right-click to save, Escape to close).
- Optional Markdown rendering — bold, italic,
strikethrough,inline code, fenced code blocks, headings, tables, and auto-linkified URLs. - In-chat search (Ctrl+F, Command+F on macOS) with real-time filtering and highlight.
- Save attachments to disk from the message context menu.
- Adaptive split-view sidebar + conversation, collapsing to a single pane on narrow windows with a back button.
- Chat list with avatars, unread dots and badges, last-message preview, smart timestamps (time / weekday / date), pinned indicator and muted styling.
- Pin, mute, delete chats from the sidebar context menu; view chat info (members, avatar, type) in a dedicated dialog.
- Contact requests surfaced with their own badge.
- Sidebar search to filter chats by name.
- Quick switcher fuzzy chat search, Enter to open the top match.
- New 1:1 chat via contact picker, and new group with name, avatar and member selection.
- Private Parla account store in Parla's XDG data directory.
- Auto-discovery of standalone
deltachat-rpc-serverfrom the Parla bundle, distro packages,$PATH,~/.local/bin, and~/.cargo/bin. - Multi-account switching from the settings dialog.
- My Profile dialog to edit display name, status and avatar.
- End-to-end encryption via Autocrypt, handled by the Delta Chat core.
- Double-click action on a message: Reply / React ❤️ / React 👍 / Open profile / None.
- Toggle Markdown rendering.
- Toggle Shift+Enter vs Enter to send.
- Toggle desktop notifications for incoming messages when the window is unfocused.
- Choose the JSON-RPC server source: Parla/system auto-discovery or a custom binary.
| Action | Other platforms | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| New chat | Ctrl+N |
Command+N |
| New group | Ctrl+G |
Command+G |
| New channel | Ctrl+Shift+G |
Command+Shift+G |
| Quick chat switcher | Ctrl+K |
Command+K |
| Account menu | Ctrl+Shift+A |
Command+Shift+A |
| Next conversation | Ctrl+Page Down |
Command+Page Down |
| Previous conversation | Ctrl+Page Up |
Command+Page Up |
| Search in conversation | Ctrl+F |
Command+F |
| Open chat info | Ctrl+I |
Command+I |
| Focus compose entry | Esc |
Esc |
| Refresh | Ctrl+R |
Command+R |
| Toggle sidebar | Ctrl+S |
Command+S |
| Compact sidebar | Ctrl+Shift+S |
Command+Shift+S |
| Settings | Ctrl+, |
Command+, |
| Close window | Ctrl+W |
Command+W |
| Quit | Ctrl+Q |
Command+Q |
| Close dialog / viewer / search | Esc |
Esc |
# Install dependencies (Ubuntu)
sudo apt install valac meson libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libjson-glib-dev
# Install the RPC backend for source builds
pip install deltachat-rpc-server
# Or: cargo install --git https://github.com/chatmail/core/ deltachat-rpc-server
# Build & run
make runOther distros
Fedora: sudo dnf install vala meson gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel json-glib-devel
Arch: sudo pacman -S vala meson gtk4 libadwaita json-glib
Flatpak: flatpak install io.github.trufae.Parla.flatpak
AppImage: make appimage
macOS
brew install meson ninja vala pkgconf gtk4 libadwaita json-glib librsvg glib-networking adwaita-icon-theme create-dmg
# Install the RPC backend for source builds.
pip install deltachat-rpc-server
# Or: cargo install --git https://github.com/chatmail/core/ deltachat-rpc-server
make run # builds and runs dist/macos/Parla.app
make app # creates dist/macos/Parla.app
make dmg # creates dist/macos/Parla-<version>-<arch>.dmgmake app bundles Homebrew GTK/libadwaita libraries. The RPC backend is not
bundled by default; set PARLA_BUNDLE_RPC_SERVER=/absolute/path/to/deltachat-rpc-server
only for a local bundle that should include a specific backend binary.
See docs/rpc-server.md for how Parla finds the JSON-RPC server and how to package it for Flatpak or distro packages.
Early-stage project — contributions welcome! Open areas: Flatpak packaging, theming, richer notifications, accessibility polish, and more message types.
GPLv3 — see LICENSE.
Built on Delta Chat, GNOME and libadwaita.