Usage

Desktop app

Tyto for macOS, Windows and Linux — several servers in one window, a tray icon, native notifications and sign-in kept in your system keychain.

Tyto desktop is the same chat you know from the browser, packaged as an app. It adds what a browser tab can’t do: it connects to several Tyto servers at once, lives in the system tray, shows native notifications for every server you’re signed in to, and keeps your sign-in in the operating system keychain.

Servers & identitiesAdd servers, switch between them, browse as a guest, manage saved sign-ins.Read →Tray & notificationsThe tray menu, snooze, presence, start on boot.Read →KeychainWhere your sign-in is stored, and what to do when the app can’t reach it.Read →

Download

Get the installer for your system from the download page. The current release is 1.0.0-beta.2; older versions are on the releases page.

System	File	Notes
macOS	`.dmg`	Intel and Apple silicon builds
Windows	`.exe`	64-bit installer, installs per user
Linux	`.AppImage`	Runs on most distributions, updates itself. Needs FUSE 2
Linux	`.deb`	Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives

Beta installers are not code-signed yet

macOS and Windows show a security warning when you open an unsigned installer, and an unsigned macOS build can’t update itself — install newer versions by hand until signed releases arrive.

Running the AppImage

Make the file executable, then start it:

chmod +x tyto-*.AppImage
./tyto-*.AppImage

AppImages need FUSE 2. If the app answers with error loading libfuse.so.2, install it — Arch: sudo pacman -S fuse2, Debian and Ubuntu: sudo apt install libfuse2 (libfuse2t64 on Ubuntu 24.04 and newer), Fedora: sudo dnf install fuse-libs.

First start

The app opens on Connect to a server:

Server address
The domain your community runs on, for example chat.example.org. Ask your admin if you’re unsure. Browse without signing in adds the server as a guest instead.
Sign in
Your email and password on that server — or create an account, when the server has open registration. Accounts with two-factor authentication get the usual code step.

You stay signed in. The app remembers every server you add and reconnects to all of them on the next start; there’s no “remember me” checkbox because there’s nothing to opt into.

Which servers work

Any Tyto server running core 1.0.0-beta.5 or newer accepts the desktop app without extra configuration. A server doesn’t need to host a web client at all — the app brings its own.

On an older or differently configured server the wizard reports that the server can’t be reached. That’s for the server’s admin to fix; see Desktop clients.

Settings that belong to the device

In the browser most preferences follow your account. In the desktop app the ones that describe this computer stay on it, shared by every server you’re connected to: theme, language, timezone, send key, interface scale, the notification toggle and all voice and video settings. Everything else — profile, presence, per-channel notification levels, community mutes — still belongs to each account.

Links

The app registers tyto:// links. A link to a message on a server you already have opens that message, switching servers if needed. A link to a server you don’t have asks before adding it — only continue if you trust where the link came from.

Updates

The app checks for a new version when it starts and every four hours after that, downloads it in the background and installs it the next time you quit. The .deb package doesn’t update itself; install the newer package over it.

A desktop release carries its own copy of the chat client, so new client features reach the app with the next desktop release, not the moment the server is updated.