X puts encrypted DMs on ice

Encrypted direct messages on X will no longer be available for users, according to a company post on the Elon Musk-owned platform.

Announcing the change on Wednesday, X's engineering team posted, "Starting today, we will be pausing the encrypted DMs feature while we work on making some improvements."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The company noted users "will still be able to access your encrypted DMs, but won't be able to send new ones."

Until now, encrypted DMs were available on X for verified users providing "the recipient follows sender, or has sent a message to sender previously, or has accepted a Direct Message request from the sender before." You can tell whether a message is encrypted if it has a lock icon badge on the avatar of the person you're messaging in the DMs tab of X.

The move comes amid reports and rumours that X's direct messages may soon be replaced with a tab called XChat. As Mashable's Matt Binder reports, "Based on screenshot leaks from another X user, it seems XChat is being positioned as a full-fledged WhatsApp competitor — complete with encrypted messaging, file sharing (including PDFs), disappearing messages, unread status toggles, message deletion for everyone (not just you), and voice messages (sometime after launch)."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

X's encrypted DMs feature was added in 2023 following Musk's acquisition, in a move meant to rival messaging on platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal. However, the feature came with many, many caveats — Mashable's Stan Schroeder and Caitlin Welsh read X's updated privacy policy and found "X may collect information on the 'metadata related to Encrypted Messages.' Ideally, the company should collect as little of such metadata as possible, though collecting some of it is sometimes unavoidable."