Quick answers to the most common questions about adding friends from phone contacts on MPChat — privacy, permissions, SMS invites, multiple numbers, and more.
Phone Contacts FAQ: Common Questions About Adding Friends
📂 Permission and privacy
Why does MPChat need access to my contacts?
To match phone numbers between your address book and registered MPChat users, and to power SMS invites. See Why MPChat Needs Contact Access for the full data policy.
Are my contact avatars uploaded to your servers?
No. Avatars fetched from your phone are cached locally only and never uploaded.
If I revoke contact permission later, do my existing friend or invite relationships disappear?
No. Existing friends and invite relationships remain. Only the live Phone Contacts list and future contact-joined notifications stop working.
📂 Finding contacts on MPChat
I know my friend uses MPChat, but they don't show up in my "Contacts on MPChat" list. Why?
Most often, your friend has disabled "Add me by phone number" in Profile → Privacy → Add me by. We respect their privacy setting and won't show them in your match list. Ask them to enable that option.
One of my contacts is already my MPChat friend. Why aren't they in the list?
The Phone Contacts page only shows people who are not yet your friend. Existing friends are filtered out so the list stays focused on adding new connections.
Why does the same person appear multiple times?
If your contact has multiple phone numbers in your address book, MPChat lists each number as a separate row so you can choose which one to invite or which matches an MPChat account.
📂 SMS invites
The SMS won't send. What do I do?
MPChat hands the message off to your phone's native SMS app — sending depends on your phone, your carrier, and the recipient's region. Check that you have signal, sufficient SMS quota, and that the SMS app didn't queue the message.
My friend installed MPChat but didn't appear as my invitee. Why?
The invite relationship is anchored to your H5 invite link in the SMS. If the recipient installed MPChat from another source without ever opening your link, the relationship was not created. See How to Invite Phone Contacts to MPChat via SMS.
The SMS came as two messages — does that break the invite?
No. Carriers may split long SMS into segments; the link and parameters arrive intact and the invite relationship works as expected.
📂 Notifications
Why did I get a "Your phone contact has joined MPChat" notification?
If you've granted contact access, MPChat notifies you when someone in your address book registers a new MPChat account, so you can quickly add them. Tap the notification to open their profile.
Can I turn off these contact-joined notifications?
Yes. Go to Profile → Notifications and adjust your MPChat notification preferences, or disable the contacts permission in your phone's system settings.
📂 Empty states
The page says "No friends to add — invite your contacts" but I have lots of contacts. What's happening?
This means none of your phone contacts are currently registered MPChat users (or they've disabled "Add me by phone number"). The invite section below should let you SMS-invite them to join. See How to Add Friends from Your Phone Contacts on MPChat.