CipherChannels

CipherChannels

Encrypted chat in Minecraft, without a server plugin.

Create a channel, share its secret invite with friends, and keep using the normal chat box. With encrypted chat turned on, your messages are encrypted before Minecraft signs and sends them. The server receives encrypted text; players with the same invite see the original message.

Everyone in a channel needs CipherChannels and the same invite. The mod runs entirely on your client, with builds for Fabric and NeoForge.

Features

• AES-256-GCM authenticated encryption.
• Multiple channels with local names and optional server locks.
• Session-only keys by default, with optional saved invites.
• Replay protection for the current Minecraft session.
• Fixed-size, 256-character encrypted messages.
• High Capacity and ASCII Compatibility chat formats.
• A vanilla-style interface with hidden invite input and clear encryption status.
• Support for prefixes, timestamps, ranks, and compatible chat formatting.
• Logging protection for vanilla chat and supported Chat Patches versions.
• Hover decrypted messages to inspect the encrypted text.

If an encrypted message cannot be sent safely, CipherChannels blocks it and keeps your draft. It never cuts messages short, splits them into several messages, or falls back to sending them unencrypted.

Get started

1. Open CipherChannels from the chat screen or its configurable key binding.
2. Choose Create… to make a channel, or Import Invite… to join one.
3. To share a channel, open Channel Settings… and choose Copy Invite. Send it privately.
4. Select the channel, choose Use Channel, and turn Encrypted Chat on.

You can compare full fingerprints through another trusted route to confirm that you have the same key.

Treat invites like passwords. Anyone with an invite can read and send messages in that channel. The [CC] mark confirms possession of the shared key, not a particular person's identity.

Saved invites

Keys stay in memory only until you close Minecraft by default. Channel names and settings remain, but you need to load the invite again before using the channel.

To load a key automatically next time, turn on Remember Invite in that channel's settings. It saves the invite in:

• macOS Keychain.
• Windows Credential Manager.
• Linux Secret Service, using libsecret and an available desktop keyring.

Your OS may ask you to allow access or unlock the store. Keys are never saved in Minecraft's settings files, and there is no plaintext-file fallback.

Turning Remember Invite off removes the saved copy but keeps the key loaded for the current session. Forgetting a channel removes its saved invite. Rotating its key replaces the saved invite if remembering is on.

Chat formats

High Capacity is the default. It carries 443 bytes of uncompressed UTF-8 text.

Compatibility sends the encrypted text using ASCII characters and carries 155 uncompressed UTF-8 bytes. Choose it if a server rejects High Capacity messages. Your choice is saved per server.

Compression can let longer messages fit, up to 4,096 UTF-8 bytes after decompression. How much fits depends on the message.

Both formats produce exactly 256 characters of encrypted text. The server must relay that text without changing it.

Privacy and limitations

The server still sees your account, message timing, destination, order, chat format, and encrypted text. It can block, change, delay, or replay messages. Without the invite, it cannot read authenticated message contents or create a valid channel message.

Replay protection tracks up to 4,096 authenticated messages for six hours. Restarting Minecraft clears that history, so an old recorded message may be accepted after a restart.

Slash commands are not encrypted, including /msg, /tell, /w, and /r. The server needs to read them. CipherChannels warns before sending commands while encryption is on.

CipherChannels does not make you anonymous, verify individual senders, or protect against malicious client mods or a compromised device. It has no forward secrecy: someone who gets an invite later may be able to decrypt older recorded messages.

You cannot revoke one person's access while keeping the same key. If an invite has been exposed, rotate the key and share the replacement privately outside the old channel.

Logging protection covers vanilla chat text that CipherChannels transforms and supported Chat Patches loggers. If an enabled Chat Patches logger cannot be protected, encrypted sending and incoming decryption pause. Old logs are not deleted, and other mods may still record messages.

Supported versions

Fabric and NeoForge builds are available for:

• Minecraft 1.21.1
• Minecraft 1.21.11
• Minecraft 26.1
• Minecraft 26.1.2
• Minecraft 26.2

Install one JAR matching your exact Minecraft version and loader.

Minecraft 1.21.x builds need Java 21. Minecraft 26.x builds need Java 25.

Fabric builds also require Fabric API. NeoForge builds need no additional mod. Mod Menu is optional.

CipherChannels 2.3 works with 2.0–2.2 CC2 channels, invites, and messages. CipherChannels 1.x is incompatible; those channels must be recreated.

For more detail, see Security and Compatibility.