Frequently asked questions

Yes, but all you need is a username and password; we never ask for an email, phone number, or ID. When you sign up you receive a Rift Key, a 12-word recovery phrase that secures your account and encryption keys.

You can sign in from desktop, web, and other supported clients. Your Shards and channels follow you; E2EE keys are handled securely per device.

Use your Rift Key, the 12-word phrase you received at signup. It recovers your account and E2EE keys without needing an email address. We can’t decrypt your DMs for you, by design.

Rift is 18+ in the same way a lounge or bar is 18+. Mature conversation, communities run by adults for adults, and a platform designed around grown-ups instead of around protecting kids. Rift is not an adult-content site or a porn platform. We just don’t try to also be a kids’ platform.

Being adults-only also unlocks the privacy features regulators don’t permit on platforms that allow minors: no email, no phone number, no government ID, and deleted messages actually leave the database. That means less surveillance and more freedom to run your community the way you want. You must be at least 18 to create an account.

Yes. Account deletion is available in settings. We remove or anonymize what we’re allowed to under law and what the product needs for safety records. See our privacy policy for specifics.

Yes. DMs use E2EE, encrypted on your device before they leave. We don’t have access to plaintext DM content. Shard (community) channels use a different model: messages are encrypted at rest on our servers but are not E2EE, since they need server-side delivery to multiple members.

The minimum needed to operate accounts, deliver messages, run voice, and enforce safety rules. We never had your email, phone number, or real name to begin with, and we don’t build ad profiles or sell your behavior.

No. There’s no behavioral tracking, ad pixel, or cross-site surveillance anywhere. The marketing site uses privacy-friendly analytics (aggregate page views only, no cookies, no fingerprinting), and nothing at all inside the app itself.

For E2EE DMs, we can’t hand over what we don’t have. For other data we may be compelled to respond to valid legal process where applicable. The warrant canary and transparency pages spell out what we can and can’t do.

Shards are your communities: spaces with text, voice, forum, gallery, and other channel types, run by the people who create them.

Portals are mini app widgets that live alongside your chat: music, weather, YouTube, Twitch, calendars, to-do lists, feeds, and more. Drag them anywhere in your layout, resize them, and save named layouts for different workflows.

Voice channels come with AI noise suppression. Low latency and clear sound, even when the room gets busy.

Forums are for threaded, text-heavy discussion. Gallery channels prioritize media: grid layouts, lightbox viewing, and sharing visual work without it getting buried.

Yes. Full CSS theme system with presets built in, live preview, accent colors, profile banners, background customization, and more. It stops looking like a generic gray box pretty fast.

Shard owners can curate clips for the whole community; you can also keep a personal set. Playback hooks into voice channels so reactions stay quick and lightweight.

Shard owners and their moderators set rules and enforce them using roles, reports, tickets, and automation. Rift steps in for platform-wide safety and legal obligations only.

You can report content or users through the in-app flow. Staff receive structured context so decisions aren’t guesswork. Serious issues may be escalated to the platform level when required.

Automated rules can flag spam, raids, and common abuse patterns. It cuts down the noise, and humans still make the judgment calls.

No. E2EE DMs are between you and the recipient. Moderators may act on reports that include metadata you choose to share, but they can’t decrypt your DM history.