With a traditional fediverse client, your data lives on a remote server managed by someone else. They have permanent access to all your data and can delete your account or shut down the server.
With Holos, your device IS the server. Your data, keys, and followers stay on your device. The relay only acts as a mailbox and cache. You can switch relays, use your own domain, and nobody can access your private data.
The trade-off: you need the app installed (no web interface), and you rely on a relay for reachability when offline.
When you're offline, the relay temporarily stores activities meant for you. Each activity type has a different retention time (TTL):
You can reduce these durations in the app settings (between 0 and the server maximum). As soon as you come back online, activities are synced to your device. They expire automatically from the relay when their TTL is reached.
When you close the app, the connection is cut and the relay queues incoming activities. Nothing runs on your device until you come back.
When you reopen the app, it syncs the queued activities. You can also enable push notifications to wake the app on important events (DMs, follows, mentions) without keeping a permanent connection.
In short: your device is only active when you use it or when a push notification wakes it briefly. No background server running 24/7.
Several ways:
Holos offers several tools to control your experience:
Account actions:
Timeline filters:
What happens when you report someone?
Holos is more permissive than most Fediverse instances:
Compatibility warnings inform you that some content may not display correctly on other instances, but you can ignore them.
Yes. Holos supports multi-device: you can connect several phones, tablets, or desktops to the same account. All devices receive the same activities and stay in sync.
Adding a new device:
All outgoing actions are routed through the relay proxy to keep devices in sync and prevent duplicate actions across the fediverse.
ActivityPub works by distribution (push), not by fetching (pull). When you post, your app sends the post directly to each follower's inbox listed locally.
Possible causes if a follower is missing:
Solution: Ask the person to unfollow and re-follow you.
Your private keys never leave your device. All outgoing activities are cryptographically signed, so nobody can post on your behalf.
The relay stores your public profile, cached posts, and a temporary queue of incoming activities (until your device picks them up). DMs between Holos users are end-to-end encrypted (Signal Protocol) so the relay cannot read them. However, DMs from non-Holos users are standard ActivityPub direct messages and are readable by the relay while queued.
For maximum privacy, enable E2EE, use the app regularly so queued messages are picked up quickly, and use short retention TTLs.
Yes, when both parties use Holos. Direct messages are end-to-end encrypted using the Signal Protocol (the same used by Signal and WhatsApp). Messages are encrypted on your device before being sent; the relay only sees opaque ciphertext.
You can verify your contact's identity via Safety Numbers in the conversation menu. If the other person uses a different fediverse app that doesn't support the Signal Protocol, messages are sent as standard (unencrypted) DMs and Holos warns you before sending.
Holos offers several layers of backup:
Your data is safe: everything is stored on your device, not on the relay. If a relay shuts down, you lose your @user@relay.domain address, but not your data.
With a custom domain: Simply point your DNS to another relay. Your identity and followers are preserved automatically.
Without a custom domain: Use the standard ActivityPub Move protocol to redirect your followers to a new account on another relay (or any fediverse instance). Your posts and keys remain on your device.
This is why custom domains are recommended: they make you completely independent from any single relay.
If you have another device connected to your account, you can use QR code transfer to set up a replacement device instantly.
If the lost phone was your only device, enter your recovery passphrase on the new device to restore your identity, followers, and posts from the encrypted backup on the relay.
If you also have a cloud backup (S3 or WebDAV), you can restore your full database including message history.
Without any recovery or backup configured, you will need to create a new account.
Transparency matters. Here's exactly what the relay can access:
What the relay cannot see:
The relay masks your IP from other fediverse instances by proxying all federation traffic.
Export: You can export your data at any time from the app settings. The export includes your posts, bookmarks, lists, filters, and followed hashtags in a portable JSON format. You can also do a full database backup (local file, S3, or WebDAV).
Deletion: You can permanently delete your account from the app. This sends a Delete notification to all your followers (ActivityPub standard), removes all your data from the relay (profile, cache, pending activities), and clears your local database. This action is irreversible.
Yes. Holos supports the ActivityPub migration protocol (Move). You can import your subscriptions from another instance, and if you leave Holos, you can redirect your followers to your new account.
Migration between relays with your own domain: If you use your own domain via CNAME, you can change relays without performing an ActivityPub migration. Simply register your account on another relay and redirect your CNAME to that new relay. This option requires technical skills (DNS management).