Chadak is a voice-first social app. You record and share short voice posts called chads, listen to people you follow, and have real-time voice conversations over DMs. This guide covers how everything works.
You can sign up with your email, Apple ID (Sign in with Apple), or Google account. After signing in, set up your profile: pick a username, upload a profile photo, and write a bio. Your username is unique to you across the app.
Your profile shows your bio, profile photo, chad count, follower count, and following count. Tap your avatar in the bottom navigation to open your profile. From there you can edit your display name, username, bio, and profile photo by tapping Edit Profile.
Tap any username or profile photo to open their profile. Tap Follow to follow them. If their account is private, your follow request goes to them for approval, and you will not hear their chads until they accept. If their account is public, following is instant and their chads start appearing in your Home feed.
A chad is a voice recording you post publicly (or to your followers, if your account is private). Think of it like a tweet, but entirely in your voice. Chads appear in your followers' feeds and can also surface in the Home feed of people who don't follow you yet, if our algorithm thinks they'd enjoy it.
On your profile or in the feed, press and hold on your chad (or tap the three-dot menu that appears) and select Delete. Deleted chads are removed from the feed and from storage. This cannot be undone.
Adding hashtags when you record helps the algorithm route your chad to people interested in those topics. You can add multiple hashtags. Hashtags you use also influence your own Home feed based on what you engage with most.
Tap the heart icon to like a chad. Tap the speech bubble icon to comment. You can post a voice comment (tap to record) or a text comment. Comments appear as a thread below the original chad on its detail page, and you can reply directly to another person's comment to keep the thread going. The creator gets a notification when you like or comment (these show up as "Comments" in Settings → Push Notifications).
Tap the rechad icon (the looping-arrows icon) on any chad to open the rechad menu:
Rechads and quotes link back to the original audio rather than copying it. If the original is deleted, the rechad/quote will show that the source chad is no longer available. The original creator is notified when you rechad or quote their chad.
Tap the share icon to share a chad. You can share it directly into a DM conversation inside Chadak, or share a link using iOS share sheet if sharing to other apps is supported.
The Home tab is your main feed. It mixes chads from people you follow with chads our algorithm thinks you'll enjoy, all in one scrolling feed, with no separate "Following" or "For You" tab to switch between. The algorithm learns what you like over time. Signals that influence what you see:
Your feed gets more accurate the more you use the app. Give it a few sessions to learn your taste.
On any chad in the feed, press and hold (or tap the three-dot menu) and select Not Interested. The chad disappears immediately and the algorithm learns to show you less of that creator and topic. Your Not Interested history is in Settings → Not Interested, where you can review or clear it.
Tap the bookmark icon on any chad to save it. Bookmarks are private. Only you can see them. Find your saved chads in Settings → Bookmarks. You can also organize bookmarks into collections: after bookmarking, tap Collect to add the chad to a named collection, and browse them under the Collections tab on the Bookmarks page. There is no limit on how many you can save.
Tap the Search tab (magnifying glass icon in the bottom navigation) to find chads and people. You can type to search, or tap the microphone icon on the right side of the search bar to search by speaking. Your phone converts your voice to text on-device to run the search. Switch between Chads and Profiles results using the segmented control at the top.
Voice stories are short voice recordings that disappear after 24 hours. They appear in the Stories bar at the top of your feed, below the Chadak header. Stories are a more casual format than chads. They are great for quick updates, reactions, or things you want people to hear right now but do not need to stay on your profile forever.
Tap your avatar in the Stories bar (it will have a + indicator) to open the story recorder. Record your voice, then tap Chad Story. It goes live immediately and disappears after 24 hours.
If your account is public, all Chadak users can see your stories. If your account is private, only your approved followers can see them.
Tap any avatar in the Stories bar to listen. A colored ring around the avatar means they have a new story you have not heard yet. A dimmer ring means you have already listened to it.
Once a story expires, it is no longer visible to anyone. You cannot retrieve an expired story. Chad thoughtfully.
Go to the Messages tab (chat bubble icon in the bottom navigation). Tap the compose icon in the top right to start a new conversation. Search for users by name or username. You can add multiple people to create a group conversation.
Inside a conversation, tap and hold the microphone button at the bottom right to record a voice message. Release to send. The other person sees the message arrive in real time.
When recording a voice message, you can choose Once instead of sending it as a regular message. A "Once" voice message can only be played a single time by the recipient. After that single playback, it locks and cannot be replayed by anyone, including you.
Once messages are Encrypted (end-to-end): your device encrypts the audio before it ever leaves your phone, using a key that only your device and the recipient's device can produce. Chadak's servers only ever see and store the encrypted result; we cannot listen to it, transcribe it, or recover it. The recipient's device downloads the encrypted audio, decrypts it privately for that one playback, and immediately deletes the decrypted copy afterward.
Regular voice messages (sent without Once) are Unencrypted and are stored like any other voice content on Chadak (the same as chads and stories), so choose Once whenever you want a message to be private and end-to-end encrypted.
From the feed, tap the share icon on any chad and select a conversation to share it into. It appears in the conversation as a playable chad card.
Group DMs work the same as one-on-one DMs. All participants see every message. You can have multiple participants in a group. The conversation has a name based on the members' usernames by default.
When someone is recording a voice message to you in a live conversation, you see a small Recording... indicator with animated dots at the bottom of the chat. This disappears as soon as they stop recording. It is real-time and temporary.
In one-on-one DMs, after your message is seen by the other person, the conversation list shows seen X ago or seen Monday instead of the sent time. Before they see it, it shows sent X ago. In group DMs, you can see small profile photo circles of the people who have seen your last message. Tap those avatars to see the full list of who has seen it.
By default, anyone on Chadak can message you. You can restrict this in Settings → Privacy → Messaging. Options are: everyone, followers only, or nobody.
Chadak can send you push notifications for:
Go to Settings → Push Notifications to turn each type on or off individually, or use the master Allow Notifications switch at the top to turn everything on or off at once. You can also manage notification permissions for the Chadak app in your iPhone's Settings → Notifications → Chadak.
By default, your account is public: anyone can follow you and hear your chads without your approval. You can switch to a private account in Settings → Privacy. With a private account:
Open the user's profile. Tap the three-dot menu in the top right and select Block. When you block someone:
Manage your blocked list in Settings → Blocked Users. You can unblock at any time.
If you see a chad, story, message, or profile that violates our Terms of Service, report it. Press and hold on a chad to see the report option, or tap the three-dot menu on a profile. Reports are reviewed by the Chadak team. For serious violations, we act quickly.
In Settings → Privacy, the Show likes count toggle controls whether other people can see how many likes your chads have. Turn it off to hide your like counts from everyone but you.
Blue Check is Chadak's verified status: a blue checkmark that appears next to your name on your profile and on every chad you post. It signals that your account has been verified through a paid subscription and helps others find and trust your content.
The subscription auto-renews monthly. To cancel, go to your iPhone's Settings → [Your Name] → Subscriptions and cancel the Chadak Blue Check subscription before the renewal date. Chadak does not handle subscription billing directly; it is all through Apple.
Blue Check is tied to your subscription. If you cancel, you lose the checkmark at the end of your billing period. Blue Check can also be revoked for Terms of Service violations, regardless of subscription status.
Tap your avatar in the bottom navigation to open your profile. Tap Edit Profile to change your display name, username, bio, and profile photo. Username changes take effect immediately.
Chadak supports dark and light mode. Go to Settings → App → Theme to toggle between them. By default it follows your device's system theme.
Voice chads and stories are cached locally on your device as you listen to them, so they load faster when you replay. Over time this can use disk space. Go to Settings → Storage to see how much space the cache is using and to clear it. Clearing the cache does not delete any content from the server. It just removes the local copy. Files are re-downloaded the next time you play them.
If your account is private, new follower requests appear in Settings → Follow Requests. You can approve or deny each request. Denied users can send another request later.
Account deletion is permanent. To delete your account, scroll to the bottom of Settings and tap Delete Account. You will be asked to confirm. Deletion removes your profile, chads, followers, and personal data from our systems. This process may take a short time to propagate fully. Data we are required to retain by law may be kept for the legally required period.
Make sure your phone is not on silent mode. Check that Chadak has microphone and audio permissions in iPhone Settings → Privacy → Microphone. If a specific chad fails to load, it may have been deleted by the creator or there may be a temporary network issue. Try again in a moment.
Check that Chadak has microphone access in your iPhone settings (Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Chadak must be enabled). Recording also requires a stable internet connection to upload the audio file after you finish recording.
Check two things: (1) In-app: Settings → Push Notifications. Make sure the type you want is enabled. (2) System level: iPhone Settings → Notifications → Chadak. Make sure Allow Notifications is on and that the alert style is set to something visible.
Pull down on the feed to trigger a manual refresh. If the issue persists, close and reopen the app. Feed personalization builds over time. If you are new, it may take a few sessions to feel relevant.
Go to Settings → Storage and clear the cache. Close other apps running in the background. If the app crashes repeatedly, delete and reinstall it from the App Store. Your account and data are stored on our servers, so reinstalling is safe.
If you did not find an answer here, reach us at chadakhelp@gmail.com.
When contacting us about a specific issue, include:
We respond to all messages but volume varies. Complex account issues may take a few business days to resolve.