# Voice and video calls

Audio and video, set up over encrypted Nostr events and then carried directly between the devices taking part.

## Placing a call

Open a [private message](https://nymchat.app/docs/private-messages/) or a [group chat](https://nymchat.app/docs/groups/) and use the phone or camera button in its header. Video calls request 720p from the camera; an audio call asks for no camera at all.

Calls are only ever placed inside an existing private conversation — there is no way to ring a stranger out of a public channel.

Who may ring you at all is *Accept Audio & Video Calls*, under Settings › Privacy & Security. It is Enabled by default; **Friends only** silently ignores calls from everyone else, and Disabled ignores all of them.

![An incoming video call from kraken in Nymchat, with answer and decline buttons.](https://nymchat.app/images/docs/call-incoming.webp)

*An incoming call.*

![A one-to-one audio call in progress in Nymchat, showing both participants and the mute, screen-share, reaction, chat and hang-up controls.](https://nymchat.app/images/docs/call-audio.webp)

*A one-to-one audio call.*

## Group calls

Group chats support group calls, with the same audio and video. Each participant connects directly to each other participant, so the bandwidth and CPU each device needs grows with the number of people on the call — there is no server in the middle mixing the streams, and small calls work considerably better than large ones.

![A group video call in Nymchat with five participant tiles, cameras off, above the call controls.](https://nymchat.app/images/docs/call-video-group.webp)

*A group call. Each tile is a direct connection to that person's device.*

## What a call reveals

Two different things happen during a call, with different privacy properties.

**Signaling** — the offers, answers and candidates that let two devices find each other — travels inside NIP-17 gift wraps, exactly like a private message. It is end-to-end encrypted and carries the same metadata protection.

**Media** — the audio and video itself — flows peer-to-peer over WebRTC, encrypted in transit, without touching a relay.

> **Peer-to-peer means the other side learns your IP address**
>
> That is inherent to a direct connection, not something Nymchat adds. Where a direct route cannot be found — typically behind a symmetric NAT — the connection falls back to a public TURN relay instead, which forwards the encrypted media without being able to read it. The same applies to [peer-to-peer file transfers](https://nymchat.app/docs/messaging/#media). If your IP address is something you protect, do not take calls from people you would not give it to.