Kaidan is a user-friendly and modern chat app for every device. It uses the open communication protocol XMPP (Jabber). Unlike other chat apps, you are not dependent on one specific service provider.
Kaidan does not have all basic features yet and has still some stability issues. But we do our best to improve it!
Screenshots
Observed history
| App | Change | Version | When ↓ |
|---|---|---|---|
| updated | 0.16.0 | 9 Oct 2026 |
Upstream releases
Release notes supplied by the developer. These dates are not Flathub package publication times.
0.16.021 Jul 2026
This release adds the following features:
- Add button to try another XMPP provider during automatic registration (@melvo)
- Display avatars in notifications (@pehg, @melvo)
- Allow to reply to message via its notification on supported systems (@pehg)
- Handle pressing Down/Escape button in chats (@melvo)
- Apply new look to emoji picker with consistent interactive background (@melvo)
- Add search field for emojis as message reactions (@melvo)
- Open emoji/participant picker at cursor position while ensuring picker's width fits best (@melvo)
- Allow to navigate through emoji picker via keyboard to select emoji (@melvo)
- Play notification sounds (@pehg)
- Show more tooltips (@melvo)
- Add viewer for opening/browsing media within a chat (@fazevedo)
- Add support to record voice messages via long press (@melvo)
- Rework user interface for consistent and smoother look/behavior including buttons, fields, and fading opacity of icons (@melvo)
- Focus message input field on starting/canceling reply (@melvo)
- Allow to zoom via mouse wheel in location map and move map by dragging (@melvo)
- Allow to share selected location via Return button (@melvo)
This release fixes the following bugs:
- Ignore incoming call requests from other own devices (@melvo)
- Fix recognizing video calls (@melvo)
- Hide contact name/avatar and adapt stop button's background if video playback is active in calls (@melvo)
- Maintain last focused user interface elements in various uses cases (@melvo)
- Fix quitting calls (@melvo)
- Fix highlighting contact invitation hint in groups (@melvo)
- Fix wrong highlighting on opening group participant picker in some cases and ensure that highlighted item is not changed as long as count does not change (@melvo)
- Fix opening chat in all cases (@melvo)
- Fix displaying full sender names of message reactions (@melvo)
- Ensure account avatar's background color is updated if system colors change (e.g., on switching between light/dark mode) (@melvo)
- Fix position of chat name/date in chat list (@melvo)
- Fix showing multiple notifications for media (@melvo)
- Fix saving new draft after sending draft (@melvo)
- Fix highlighting referenced message after loading from database (@fazevedo)
- Fix behavior of toggle buttons on release after long press (@melvo)
- Ensure icons in media viewer and message context menu are always sharp (@melvo)
- Fix displaying notifications for personal data (e.g., availability and device info) sharing requests even if no chat is open (@melvo)
- Update chat list filtering on availability changes of contacts (@melvo)
- Fix sound behavior for subsequent messages (@melvo)
- Fix message input field overlapping messages if its height increases (@melvo)
- Keep zoom level within bounds while zooming in location map (@melvo)
- Fix displaying avatar after canceling selection (@melvo)
- Fix location displaying/sharing including proper location markers (@melvo)
- Allow entering credentials to log in (@fazevedo)
- Fix displaying marked message area (@melvo)
Kaidan requires KItemModels now
Kaidan requires Qt 6.9 now
Kaidan requires QXmpp 1.16 now
0.15.030 Jan 2026
This release adds the following features:
- Add support for audio/video calls (XEP-0166: Jingle, XEP-0167: Jingle RTP Sessions, XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method, XEP-0215: External Service Discovery, XEP-0320: Use of DTLS-SRTP in Jingle Sessions, XEP-0353: Jingle Message Initiation) (@melvo)
- Show busy indicator while saving captured image/video data (@melvo)
- Notify on receiving reply to own group chat message if 'On mention' notification setting is enabled (@melvo)
- Select file after opening in folder on Linux if supported (@melvo)
- Improve media capturing look/behavior (including preview after capturing image until image is saved) (@melvo)
- Restore focusing of last focused user interface elements (especially message input field) for various use cases (@melvo)
- Keep message bubble highlighted on reacting/correcting (@melvo)
- Allow to select message for correction via Ctrl+Up/Ctrl+Down (@melvo)
- Integrate search field into main toolbar increasing space for messages and, on mobile devices, even for chats in chat list (@melvo)
- Show message search field via Ctrl+Shift+F (@melvo)
- Display toolbar buttons on mobile devices exactly as on desktop devices (@melvo)
- Hide horizontal separator above top-most chat unless chat list is scrolled (@melvo)
- Store passwords in unencrypted file if no password manager is available or corresponding command-line option provided (@fazevedo)
- Migrate unencrypted passwords to password manager if available on start (@fazevedo)
This release fixes the following bugs:
- Fix overlapping message bubble tail (@melvo)
- Fix medium preview hovering if hidden drop area info is hovered (@melvo)
- Fix updating OMEMO 2 keys for all use cases (@melvo)
- Fix deadlock on logout during upload of multiple files (@melvo)
- Fix creating additional database connection on wrong thread (@melvo)
- Fix sending/resetting whether message is being composed for various corner cases (switching chat, logging out, disabling corresponding setting) (@melvo)
- Fix updating last message on receiving initial message after setting up existing account in Kaidan for first time (@melvo)
- Fix resetting draft message after canceling message correction (@melvo)
- Fix resending failed message reaction (@melvo)
- Fix selecting previously selected message after changing reactions (@melvo)
- Fix restoring message highlighting and cancel ongoing correction/reply on removing corresponding message (@melvo)
- Fix displaying last message sender in chat list after draft message removal (@melvo)
Kaidan requires Kirigami Addons 1.8 now
Kaidan requires QXmpp 1.14 now
0.14.01 Jan 2026
This release adds the following features:
- Keep draft messages on top of pinned/unpinned chat list items (@pehg)
- Optimize thumbnail creation (@fazevedo)
- Display border around searched/referenced message instead of bar (@melvo)
- Display border around message if its context menu is shown (@melvo)
- Highlight message's avatar if hovered (@melvo)
- Display provider chat (used for welcome messages and service announcements) as such (@melvo)
- Always display same name and proper avatar initials for notes chats (@melvo)
- Allow to cancel downloads/uploads (@fazevedo)
- Allow to restart canceled uploads (@fazevedo)
- Allow to resend failed message via context menu (@melvo)
- Retrieve support addresses from server instead of provider list (XEP-0157: Contact Addresses for XMPP Services, XEP-0128: Service Discovery Extensions) (@melvo)
- Allow adding contact by entering XMPP URI (including authentication of OMEMO 2 keys) (@melvo)
- Allow joining group chat by entering XMPP URI (@melvo)
- Add option for allowing SASL PLAIN (needed for servers using LDAP) to custom connection settings (@melvo)
- Add filtering options to choose provider for registration (@melvo)
- Cancel file transfers on disconnecting from server (@fazevedo)
- Add support for offline media sharing queue (@fazevedo)
- Restart downloads canceled on logout once logged in (@melvo)
- Remove all related data on message removal (such as reactions and media) (@melvo)
This release fixes the following bugs:
- Fix displaying message reaction details (@melvo)
- Fix adding unneeded separator on mention after new line (@melvo)
- Wrap hint for actions needing user to be connected to server (@melvo)
- Fix displaying icons on Windows (@pehg)
- Fix adding new line at cursor position (@melvo)
- Ensure that own encryption devices are not removed if notes chat is removed (@melvo)
Kaidan requires KIconThemes (for Windows) now
Kaidan requires Qt6GuiPrivate (for Qt 6.10 or above) now
Kaidan requires Qt 6.7 now
Kaidan requires QXmpp 1.13 now
0.13.021 Sept 2025
This release adds the following features:
- Add support for using multiple accounts simultaneously (@melvo)
- List accounts and show button to add new accounts (@melvo)
- Show dialog to select account for global action such as adding a contact (@melvo)
- Allow to enable/disable accounts instead of connecting/disconnecting them manually (@melvo)
- Update nicknames of own accounts once connected (@melvo)
- Show small account avatars next to regular avatars if multiple accounts are used (@melvo)
- Hide global drawer handle on chat if window is narrow (@melvo)
- Use PNG/.png instead of JPEG/.jpg for thumbnails to allow transparency (@melvo)
- Use AAC/.m4a instead of MP3/.mp3 for voice messages to improve compatibility (@melvo)
- Provide size of sent images to recipients allowing receiving client to scale thumbnails to size of original image (@melvo)
- Provide size of generated thumbnails to recipients (@melvo)
- Increase size of generated thumbnails (@melvo)
- Show circle instead of bar for upload/download progress (@melvo)
- Try all providers on connection error during automatic registration (@melvo)
- Add message forwarding (@melvo)
- Enable voice message recording via Flatpak (@melvo)
- Store account passwords encrypted if password manager is available (@fazevedo)
- Apply consistent criteria for all message corrections (@melvo)
- Add support to mark messages locally in order to reply to them later or to quickly find important messages (@melvo)
- Reuse SASL 2 user agent and FAST token on every restart for faster connection establishment (@melvo)
This release fixes the following bugs:
- Fix selecting media via long press in media overview (@melvo)
- Fix OMEMO initialization (@melvo)
- Fix displaying geo location map (@melvo)
- Fix showing hints on invalid input of various input fields (@melvo)
- Fix name/date of chat list item moving if counter for unread messages dis-/appears (@melvo)
- Fix counter for unread messages (@melvo)
- Fix handling removed message reactions (@melvo)
- Fix canceling personal data sharing via contact details (@melvo)
- Fix finding existing notifications for personal data sharing requests (@melvo)
- Fix cursor behavior in message input field by allowing vertical cursor movements while participant picker is closed and prohibiting horizontal cursor movements while participant picker is open (@melvo)
Kaidan requires QtKeychain 0.15 now
Kaidan requires QXmpp 1.11 now

