Review Insights · App Store
Threema. The Secure Messenger
Threema GmbH · 654 ratings · ★ 4.3
4.3
★★★★★
654 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 28 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"threema"
9 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Finding Threema contacts is close to impossible. Add: search by email or phone number" - AlwaysDelta
2
"phone"
7 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Finding Threema contacts is close to impossible. Add: search by email or phone number" - AlwaysDelta
3
"messages"
6 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "For the love of god fix voice messages!!!. I love how I can record messages with my airpods and put my phone in my pocket while continuing to record. But it does happen from time to time thst rhe recording stops suddenly. Or it doesn’t remember the recording and gives an error messa…" - Marie1231992
4
"paid"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Issues. So many issues for a paid app." - ths1969!!!
5
"doesn"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Disappointed. It doesn’t capture the contacts after 4 tries. Not good!" - Paul Sherrill
6
"years"
4 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "lost everything. have used this for 6 years. suddenly started not connecting every afternoon for several hours. ultimately had to delete app and redownload. app failed to import my backup safe or even my ID. had to start over completely from scratch with a …" - huddie my cuddy
7
"been"
4 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Been using securely for years. The best" - Climax510
8
"features"
4 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lacks features. Can’t respond to individual messages with emoji reactions. Doesn’t support a .gif keyboard. Can’t pin individual messages that are important to the top in group messages." - Txstarsfan
9
"lost"
3 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "lost everything. have used this for 6 years. suddenly started not connecting every afternoon for several hours. ultimately had to delete app and redownload. app failed to import my backup safe or even my ID. had to start over completely from scratch with a …" - huddie my cuddy
10
"everything"
3 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "lost everything. have used this for 6 years. suddenly started not connecting every afternoon for several hours. ultimately had to delete app and redownload. app failed to import my backup safe or even my ID. had to start over completely from scratch with a …" - huddie my cuddy
11
"other"
3 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Location sharing. We paid seven dollars each to share location with each other, but once we're logged in and ready to go, there's no visible location sharing option." - M48197
12
"while"
3 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "For the love of god fix voice messages!!!. I love how I can record messages with my airpods and put my phone in my pocket while continuing to record. But it does happen from time to time thst rhe recording stops suddenly. Or it doesn’t remember the recording and gives an error messa…" - Marie1231992
📋 All 28 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Issues
So many issues for a paid app.
lost everything
have used this for 6 years. suddenly started not connecting every afternoon for several hours. ultimately had to delete app and redownload. app failed to import my backup safe or even my ID. had to start over completely from scratch with a new ID and lost all my previous chats. customer service’s response along the way: “contact Apple App store.”
Location sharing
We paid seven dollars each to share location with each other, but once we're logged in and ready to go, there's no visible location sharing option.
Disappointed
It doesn’t capture the contacts after 4 tries. Not good!
Never signed up
I never agreed to a subscription and there doesn’t seem to be any way to cancel this!
Unfamiliar charge
I am frustrated because you all are trying to charge me for your services and I never signed up for you on my apple account. I never downloaded your app. I don’t need your app. This is bad business.
Call Quality Subpar
Call quality and speed of connection is still subpar.
Finding Threema contacts is close to impossible
Add: search by email or phone number
Been using securely for years
The best
Hata
Mesaj gönderemiyorum karşı taraf mesajlarımı görüyor ama ben göremiyorum
For the love of god fix voice messages!!!
I love how I can record messages with my airpods and put my phone in my pocket while continuing to record. But it does happen from time to time thst rhe recording stops suddenly. Or it doesn’t remember the recording and gives an error message and then it disappears. This is so frustrating, especially when you do longer messages. Please finally fix this!
Automatic Deletions
There should be an option for auto deletions within days not week or month!!!
Use Signal instead.
Haven’t seen much good things added in terms of features or bugfixes in a looooong time.
- sending media from Photos app requires you to wait for the media to be encoded before you can add captions. You need to keep the send dialogue open until everything is sent, otherwise you loose your captions and you have to share from pictures again
- when sending multiple images/videos and one fails (eg network timeout), all media “after” that are lost and you have to share again from Photos app.
- randomly people can’t receive/send messages for non-obvious reasons. No error messages whatsoever. We found out by accident when speaking IRL. Trusting the other’s Threema IDs resolved it
- extremely limited set of reaction emojis. Why can’t I use the full emoji pallet to express my emotions
- can’t port data backups from android to iOS???
- when you are offline for some time and get online again you are spammed by notifications, instead of Threema batching them in a single notification/one per chat
Threema for Desktop is the only good addition that I’ve seen in 5+ years.
I don’t see a reason to pay for Threema when there are better alternatives (Signal being the obvious one)
- sending media from Photos app requires you to wait for the media to be encoded before you can add captions. You need to keep the send dialogue open until everything is sent, otherwise you loose your captions and you have to share from pictures again
- when sending multiple images/videos and one fails (eg network timeout), all media “after” that are lost and you have to share again from Photos app.
- randomly people can’t receive/send messages for non-obvious reasons. No error messages whatsoever. We found out by accident when speaking IRL. Trusting the other’s Threema IDs resolved it
- extremely limited set of reaction emojis. Why can’t I use the full emoji pallet to express my emotions
- can’t port data backups from android to iOS???
- when you are offline for some time and get online again you are spammed by notifications, instead of Threema batching them in a single notification/one per chat
Threema for Desktop is the only good addition that I’ve seen in 5+ years.
I don’t see a reason to pay for Threema when there are better alternatives (Signal being the obvious one)
ORIGINALLY absolutely loved the app
Used this app for years, recommended to numerous friends, family. It was a way for me to keep my family (texts/photos) separate from my work. I got a new phone, I had my backup turned on, erased my old phone, and poof. When to log in on my new phone and I couldn’t…..my email and phone # didn’t exist. Why? Because you must create a backup and ID with them, and then download from them after. I lost years and years of so much information that I really made sure to keep. So disappointed.
Calls disconnect regularly
The call function is still very buggy. To date, I have been unable to complete more than a 15-30 second call without the app disconnecting. It also takes up to 2 minutes at spook up to ‘initialize’.
If the security is a robust ad claimed, perhaps the calling and video technology will catch up? As a paid app, albeit no,I al, the ‘freebies’ are still much better.
Help!
If the security is a robust ad claimed, perhaps the calling and video technology will catch up? As a paid app, albeit no,I al, the ‘freebies’ are still much better.
Help!
Problemas
Las llamadas no funcionan muy bien
BOTH SIDES DELETION FEATURE
Guys , your application is perfect, the only missing feature which would make this my and many's best and #1 communication app is the " Delet for both sides " feature.
Do it fast please that would make hundreds of people using this app today !
Thanks !!
Do it fast please that would make hundreds of people using this app today !
Thanks !!
This App Is Designed To Alienate You
Maybe there’s some brilliant back-end encryption (though do some searching about that and come to your own conclusions), but the app seems positively designed to make you throw your phone across the room. From the new messages being pushed as software updates *that you can’t turn off* - the button for turning off announcements is ineffective - to the giant green blob concealing the text window the first time you try to use the thing, to the bizarre and completely inexplicable ritual of what seems like making some sort of passcode but isn’t, everything about this thing screams “we, the engineers, hate you and want you to suffer”.
Keep staying at the welcome page and no reactions
Bug loop!!! Rebooting the app or the device cannot solve this problem! Threema 4.9.1 iOS 16.2
Video messaging can’t compete with Marco Polo
I convinced my dating partner to give this app a try for video messaging instead of using Marco Polo. 5 of the first 7 messages she recorded couldn’t be processed and were deleted. She’s given up and the $5 I paid for her app are now up in 🔥s. Please do better.
Cannot send videos
I’ve had the new IPhone 16 pro max for weeks now, and I have never been able to send a video on it. Worked fine on my IPhone 13. Now whenever I try to send a video whether I take the video in Threema, or on my phones camera app, I get an error saying “could not load the video, please restart the app and try again”. I have closed it and reopened, restarted my phone, even deleted Threema and re-installed it.
Lacks features
Can’t respond to individual messages with emoji reactions. Doesn’t support a .gif keyboard. Can’t pin individual messages that are important to the top in group messages.
Threema stoped notifying !!!
Its been over two months now that Threema has stopped working with the notifications! I have turned off/on my phone multiple times, and the app is up to date on the app store😡. This is very annoying given that i paid money for this app
Too many BUGS 🐞
It’s good in general but lately many bugs running around and after the latest IOS update no sound for incoming messages.
Plz fix it and remove the bugs , I’m just waiting for an update for threema !
Plz fix it and remove the bugs , I’m just waiting for an update for threema !
It’s full of bugs - can I trust the privacy?
If the user experience is any indication of what’s going on behind the scenes, then it’s hard to trust this app. Calls routinely drop with no explanation, the app randomly scrolls to much earlier dates while the scroll to latest button doesn’t function. Generally, you don’t get the feeling you’re using something solidly built. It feels more like a prototype, which for me, casts doubt on the privacy features themselves. I wish they’d focus on the UX a bit more and make it friendlier and more polished.
After todays update Threema did not start on IOS16.2
After todays update Threema did not start on IOS16.2
Crashes all the time
App crashes every time multiple images and videos are downloaded in a group chat. Also, it takes a while to restart the app after it crashed. Android app does not have this issue. I love Threema in general, but constant crashing makes me think twice before asking others to buy this app.
Lack of Phone Support & No Detailed Instructions re Use
The Threema App maybe superior and it may offer unique features that other Apps don’t offer. Yet, as a non-IT person, the ability to get the appropriate functions working without more comprehensive support or written instructions is a significant short coming. Chats are available but to get the benefits up and working appear to be a major effort. Inquiries were made to Threema regarding the availability of written instructional materials; it appears they are not available.
Sentiment summary
81%
Positive (4-5★)
6%
Neutral (3★)
14%
Negative (1-2★)