One inbox for every messaging network. A desktop client that brings your conversations together without asking you to give up your accounts.
Parley connects to each network the way that network intends. Telegram through TDLib, which Telegram publishes for exactly this. WhatsApp as a companion device, the same mechanism WhatsApp Web uses. Your phone stays the primary device, no password is ever handled, and nothing is routed through a server we control, because there isn't one.
Early, honest about it, and usable.
| Network | State | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Telegram | Connected through TDLib. Chats, history, send, receive, media. | None. Telegram supports third party clients. |
| Connected as a companion device. Chats, history, send, receive, all media types, voice notes, reactions, replies, edit, delete, forward. | Unofficial client. See Account risk. | |
| Discord | Not built. Bot accounts only, by design. | Personal accounts through the API are selfbots, which Discord bans. |
| Slack | Not built. | Official API, needs a workspace app and OAuth. |
| Signal | Not built. | Possible via signal-cli as a linked device. Adds a Java dependency. |
Download the file for your platform from Releases.
| Platform | File | How to run |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Parley-x.y.z.AppImage |
chmod +x Parley-*.AppImage && ./Parley-*.AppImage |
| Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) | parley_x.y.z_amd64.deb |
sudo apt install ./parley_*.deb |
| Linux (Fedora, RHEL) | parley-x.y.z.x86_64.rpm |
sudo dnf install ./parley-*.rpm |
| Windows | Parley-x.y.z-x64.exe |
Run the installer, or use the portable build |
| macOS | Parley-x.y.z-x64.dmg |
Open the dmg and drag Parley to Applications |
On macOS the build is unsigned, so the first launch needs
right click, Open rather than a double click. On Linux, voice notes want
ffmpeg on your PATH; without it they still send, just in a format some
clients will not play.
Needs Node 20 or newer.
git clone https://github.com/maykano-dev/Parley.git
cd Parley
npm install
npm startnpm start opens the desktop app. npm run serve runs the bridge alone and
serves the interface at http://127.0.0.1:5173 if you would rather use a
browser.
npm run dist:linux # AppImage, deb, rpm
npm run dist # whatever your current platform supports
npm run dist:all # linux, windows and macos targetsCross building to macOS from Linux produces an unsigned artifact. Windows and Linux targets cross build fine.
Open Accounts in the left rail.
Telegram issues credentials per application. Go to
my.telegram.org, API development tools, create an
app, then put the pair in data/telegram.json:
{
"apiId": 0,
"apiHash": ""
}Restart Parley, press Connect, and sign in with your phone number, the login code Telegram sends to your other devices, and your two step password if you have one.
Keep
api_hashprivate.data/is excluded from git. Never commit it.
Press Link a device and either scan the QR code, or switch to Use an 8 character code, enter your number, and type the code into Linked devices, Link a device, Link with phone number instead on your phone.
Unified inbox. Conversations from every connected network in one list, sorted by recency, filterable by unread, groups, direct, or network.
The interaction layer you expect. Drag and drop files anywhere in a conversation, paste screenshots straight from the clipboard, right click any message for reply, react, copy, save, forward, edit and delete, right click any chat for pin, mute, archive and mark unread. Per chat drafts that survive switching. Up arrow in an empty composer edits your last message.
Voice notes. Record in the app; it transcodes to ogg/opus with ffmpeg so the other side can actually play it.
Media vault. Every attachment and link across every conversation, indexed in one place.
- Filter by images, video, documents, audio, links, or saved
- Search across filename, caption, sender, chat and auto tags
- Conservative auto tagging: receipts, travel, work, screenshots
- Reference mode by default. Nothing is copied. The vault is an index over files that already exist in your conversations
- Save to vault is explicit, per file, with a running total and a one click purge
Appearance. Light and dark, seven accents, six wallpapers, glass depth, corner radius and density, all applied live.
Read this before linking WhatsApp.
Parley talks to WhatsApp through a reverse engineered implementation of the multi-device companion protocol. WhatsApp treats unofficial clients as a terms violation and has restricted accounts over it, including a ban wave in May 2025 that hit people doing nothing but reading and replying normally.
Most bans follow behaviour: bulk sending, mass group invites, high velocity messaging to strangers, bot style auto replies. Parley does none of that. It sends ordinary presence and read receipts, one message at a time, only when you press send. That puts you in normal client territory, which is the biggest factor in your favour.
It does not make you safe. Meta can also fingerprint the client itself, and no amount of good behaviour prevents that. A ban hits the whole account, not just Parley.
Link a secondary number first if losing the account would hurt.
Telegram has none of this. TDLib is Telegram's own library and third party clients are explicitly supported.
These are properties of WhatsApp, not bugs:
- History is a window. A companion gets recent history at link time, never your whole archive. Search only covers what this device has seen.
- Four device slots. WhatsApp Web, the desktop app and a tablet all compete for the same four.
- 14 day leash. If your phone stays offline for 14 days, every companion is unlinked.
- Your phone does not need to be online the rest of the time.
- Everything runs on your machine. The bridge binds to
127.0.0.1only. - There is no Parley server. Nothing is relayed, nothing is collected.
- Session keys live in
data/. Treat that directory like a password. - Message content is never written to a log. The protocol logger is silent by
default;
WA_LOG=debug npm run serveturns it up for debugging only. - Media is decrypted on demand and streamed from memory unless you explicitly save it to the vault.
server/
index.js http and websocket bridge, uploads, media, ffmpeg transcode
wa.js WhatsApp adapter Baileys in, normalised events out
tg.js Telegram adapter TDLib in, normalised events out
vault.js media index and the saved file store
store.js bounded JSON persistence
web/
index.html every screen
app.css design tokens, both themes, glass, custom scrollbars
app.js rendering, websocket client, interaction layer
electron/
main.cjs desktop shell: tray, single instance, unread badge, updates
scripts/
screenshots.cjs regenerates the images in this README
The rule that keeps this extensible: the interface never imports a protocol
library. It only ever sees Chat and Message. One router picks the adapter
from the chat id prefix. Each adapter exports a CAPABILITIES object declaring
what its network supports, so the UI greys out what a network cannot do instead
of flattening every network to a lowest common denominator.
Adding a network is a new file in server/, not a rewrite.
The images here are generated, not curated:
npm run shotsViews that need a connected account are skipped when nothing is linked, so this never produces a screenshot of data that does not exist.
- Sending attachments on Telegram is not wired; receiving works
- Reactions arrive on both networks but are only sendable on WhatsApp
- No desktop notifications yet
- The store is JSON, which will want SQLite once chat lists run to thousands
- WhatsApp calls and Status are not available to companion devices at all
MIT. See LICENSE.
Parley is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to WhatsApp, Meta, Telegram, Discord, Slack or Signal. All trademarks belong to their owners.