Question 1

What is Teenyard?

Accepted Answer

Teenyard (also written as "teen yard" or "Teen Yard") is a privacy-first social messaging app for everyone who wants real connection without ads or trackers. Direct messages and group chats are end-to-end encrypted on your device. Anonymous Vibe pairs you with strangers who share your hobbies. Stories disappear after 24 hours. "Teenyard" is a brand name — the app is NOT teen-only and NOT a youth program; the legal minimum age is 14 only because India's DPDP Act 2023 requires it for any social platform. The official site is teenyard.com.

Question 2

Is "teen yard" the same as Teenyard?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Teenyard, "teen yard", "Teen Yard", and "TeenYard" all refer to the same app — a privacy-first end-to-end encrypted social messaging platform for everyone, not exclusively teenagers. The brand is one word (Teenyard) but the two-word spelling is also commonly used. The official website is teenyard.com.

Question 3

Is Teenyard only for teenagers?

Accepted Answer

No. "Teenyard" is a brand name, not an age category — adults are welcome and the app is built for everyone who wants encrypted, ad-free messaging. The legal minimum age is 14 because India's DPDP Act 2023 requires it for any social platform. Users aged 14–17 are isolated server-side and never paired with adults in Vibe. Every chat surface has report and block; CSAM and grooming are reported to law enforcement under POCSO. Safety controls apply equally to all users regardless of age.

Question 4

Is Teenyard a dating app?

Accepted Answer

No. Vibe pairs people by shared hobbies, mood, and similar age — it is friendship-focused, not romantic. Talk chats expire after 30 minutes of inactivity. There is no swipe, no like, no compatibility-score gamification. The app explicitly disallows sexual content and removes accounts that misuse the feature.

Question 5

How does end-to-end encryption work on Teenyard?

Accepted Answer

Direct messages and group chats use ECDH P-256 key exchange plus AES-256-GCM symmetric encryption. The encryption keys never leave your device. In Standard mode, a server-stored recovery secret lets you sign in on a new phone and recover past chats. In Maximum Privacy mode, you set a passphrase that derives the key via PBKDF2-SHA-256 with 600,000 iterations — even Teenyard cannot read your messages.

Question 6

Does Teenyard show ads or sell my data?

Accepted Answer

No. Teenyard has zero advertising, zero third-party trackers, and never sells user data. Revenue comes from an optional Universal Pass subscription that unlocks unlimited Vibe talks.

Question 7

How do I delete my Teenyard account?

Accepted Answer

Open the app, go to Profile, scroll to Delete Account, and confirm. Your account enters a 24-hour grace period and is then hard-deleted from the database. Avatar, chat media, and stories stored on Cloudflare R2 are also wiped. You can cancel deletion within the grace window. Email supportteenyard@gmail.com for help.

Question 8

What is the Decoy PIN?

Accepted Answer

A second PIN you can configure that opens a blank-looking version of the app. Useful when someone insists on looking at your phone. Entering the real PIN opens the actual app; entering the decoy PIN opens an empty version where chats, stories, and the question box appear as if you have nothing to hide.

Question 9

Where is my data stored?

Accepted Answer

Structured data (your profile, friend graph, chat ciphertext) sits in a Supabase Postgres database hosted in Mumbai. Uploaded media (avatars, chat photos, voice notes) goes to Cloudflare R2 with global edge replication. Web app hosting is on Vercel. All transfers use TLS 1.3 and cleartext HTTP is rejected on Android. Full processor list is in our Privacy Policy.

Question 10

What features does Teenyard have?

Accepted Answer

Teenyard ships: end-to-end encrypted direct messages and group chats, anonymous Vibe pairing strangers by shared hobbies, ephemeral Stories that disappear in 24 hours, Dead Drops (geo-pinned messages anyone nearby can find), Hype (anonymous compliments to friends), an anonymous question box, a Vibe Map of your people, per-chat disappearing messages, view-once photos and videos, Decoy PIN, screenshot and screen-recording blocking on Android, app-lock with PIN, panic wipe of local cache, in-app report and block on every surface, and full account deletion. No ads, no trackers.

Question 11

What are Dead Drops on Teenyard?

Accepted Answer

Dead Drops are short geo-pinned messages you leave at your current location. Anyone within the radius you set can discover them on the map. Each drop has a time-to-live and a maximum view count — once either limit hits, the drop deletes itself. Useful for leaving notes for friends at a meeting spot, treasure-hunt style games, or anonymous notes from your school or neighbourhood.

Question 12

What is Hype on Teenyard?

Accepted Answer

Hype lets you send anonymous compliments to friends — three free hypes per friend per week. The receiver sees the message but not the sender. It is intentionally a positive-only feature; abusive hypes are reported and removed. Friends get a notification, the count appears in their Hype tab.

Question 13

How does the anonymous question box work?

Accepted Answer

Every Teenyard user has a question-box link (teenyard.com/q/username). Visitors can type a question without signing in or revealing who they are; the receiver sees the question in their Hype tab and can answer publicly to their followers. Spam or abusive questions are reported and the sender IP can be permanently blocked from your box.

Question 14

Does Teenyard block screenshots?

Accepted Answer

Yes. On Android, every chat, view-once message, and anonymous Talk chat applies FLAG_SECURE, which blocks both screenshots and screen recordings (MediaProjection, scrcpy, built-in screen recorders all return black frames). The whole-app Screen Security toggle in Profile extends this to every screen. Stories use a different model — captures are allowed but the story owner gets a notification when one happens on Android 14+.

Question 15

What are disappearing and view-once messages?

Accepted Answer

Disappearing messages auto-delete on a chat-wide timer (1 hour, 12 hours, 1 day, or 7 days from send). View-once is per-message — pick 5 seconds, 30 seconds, or unlimited, and the message destroys itself after the recipient opens it. View-once photos and videos sit inside a sealed bubble until tapped; once viewed, they leave a "Once-view sent" placeholder.

Question 16

What is Maximum Privacy mode?

Accepted Answer

Two privacy modes. Standard (default) stores a recovery secret on our servers so you can sign in on a new phone and recover past chats — convenient, but a DB compromise or court order could expose past messages. Maximum Privacy replaces the server-stored secret with a passphrase you choose; PBKDF2-SHA-256 with 600,000 iterations derives the key client-side. Even Teenyard cannot read your messages. Losing the passphrase is permanent.