Sandes (which means message in Hindi), the Indian Government's instant messaging app is recently launched by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), this is an upgrade to the existing Government Instant Messaging System (GIMS) app which was earlier only available for Government officials. But now this can be used by both Government officials and individual users too. It requires a mobile number or government email ID for sign up. Once signed up, users can send and receive messages as well as create new groups or send multimedia content such as images and videos.
This also gives a boost to PM Narendra Modi’s Digital India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative.
This is an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, which is aimed as an alternative to WhatsApp.
How to sign-up and install the Sandes app?
The app is currently not available for download on PlayStore but the APK file for both android and iOS users is available for download on the NIC website. iOS users can also download this app through App Store and it is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and the iPod touch running on at least iOS 12.0.
To sign-up on the Sandes app, Government officials can log in by their official email ID whereas individual users can log in through their mail ID or mobile number.
Email IDs are restricted to government IDs only — if you try to sign up with a Gmail, Hotmail, or other email accounts, you'll see a notice that emails from that domain are not allowed. Even government-related accounts like @mygov.in accounts are not accepted — only official @gov.in emails can be used to register with the app. Otherwise, you have to use your phone number.
Once you enter your mail ID or phone number the app will send you a six-digit OTP for authentication. After entering the OTP it will get verified then you can start sending and receiving messages.
Best Sandes App Features
As of now, Whatsapp is the most popular messaging app out there in the market. Apps like Signal, Telegram, etc. also tried to provide users with some new features but the feature provided by Whatsapp was far better. Sandes app is also providing many amazing features such as end-to-end encryption, multimedia and file sharing, Tags, audio and video Calling, Gimoji, and much more.
Tags: You can mark a message as Confidential, Priority and Auto Delete and the actions are as per the names suggest.
Gimoji: This is basically targetted for the Students, Teacher and Professionals that features some cool Stickers regarding the conversations that are done at the official level. This is a great feature for the conversations in Official Groups that sometimes get filled with junks.
Text Styling: Style texts as per your choice from Bold, Italic, Underline and Colouring.
Minimal UI: Hassle-free clean UI that looks awesome.
Is Sandes better than Whatsapp?
In the Sandes app, there is an option to backup chats even on email which doesn’t happen in WhatsApp as it lets you back up chats to either Google Drive on Android or iCloud on iOS. Sandes app also doesn't allow users to change their mobile number or email ID once signed up. This means that you'll need to stick to your mobile number or email ID that you used for signing up to continue to use the app. Alternatively, you can delete your account and then create a new one with a different mobile number or email ID. WhatsApp, in contrast, has a dedicated Change Number feature to let you easily move from an old phone number to a new one — without deleting your profile. You will also notice verified accounts on this app, which isn’t available on WhatsApp. One of the important difference is that on the Sandes app you can share photos and videos up to 500MB whereas on Whatsapp you can only share photos and videos of up to 16MB and documents of up to 100MB. But if we talk about privacy features such as fingerprint lock and pattern lock, these are not yet available on Sandes app.
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