Kik Messenger

Kik makes it easier than ever before to keep in touch with your friends and family. Unlike other apps that require you to disclose your phone number, Kik allows you to sign up and send messages with just your email address, which helps keep your privacy safe.


Whether you’re looking to protect your privacy, or you’re just looking for a new way to keep in touch, there’s a lot to know about this popular messaging app. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know.

Kik Messenger is a free instant messaging and social networking app that uses your smartphone’s data plan or Wi-Fi connection to send messages to other Kik users, bypassing SMS (short message service). It’s available on iOS, Android, and Amazon for Kindle Fire.

While Kik is not unique in how it transmits communications, it differentiates itself with a distinctive but controversial effort to target a specific demographic: Kik appeals to the teenage crowd because of its emphasis on privacy and anonymity. As of 2016, Kik Messenger had some 300 million registered users, and was used by an estimated 40% of teenagers in the U.S.

The trick is that you do not have to register your phone number with Kik — it needs only your name and email — which lets you maintain a super-private presence on the platform that’s identifiable only by your user name, the name you register with. With only a user name as an ID, Kik lets you exchange messages, photos, videos, sketches, stickers, mobile webpages, emoji and other content with others on the platform. This greatly appeals to teen users (the official minimum age is 13 years old), as well as others with privacy concerns.

With a user name instead of a phone number, you don’t automatically share personal information with others — your chat companions on Kik can only see your display name, user name, and profile picture. They can’t see your email address, phone number, or birthday, though within a Kik group, everyone can see your user name. An optional feature checks for Kik accounts that match email addresses or phone numbers on your smartphone to help you find your contacts.