This new app could make embarrassing drunk texts a thing of the past

I’m sure many of us have been on the receiving end or, God forbid, the giving end of embarrassing drunk texts, but there’s a new app out there that hopes to make those a thing of the past. Unlike the ephemeral nature of services like Snapchat, the app known as Strings only deletes messages that you ask it to, and not just on your phone, but the phone of every person you sent the messages to.

It’s still early enough in January that if you promise not to drunkenly text pictures of your behind to your friends, it still counts as a New Year’s Resolution. Still, in an age where everyone’s off-hand conversations can be made public in a flash, it’d be nice to regain some control of where our words are shared. That’s where Strings comes in, since the iOS app is a rival to Snapchat and WhatsApp that clearly hopes to foster a consent culture around mobile messaging. With Strings, users can converse with pictures, videos and text, but if people want to save any of those locally, they have to ask you for your permission. Even better is that a user can edit data on other people’s devices, so if you carelessly send the wrong picture or use the wrong word, you can delete it whenever you need to. It’s free to download, and the app even mirrors Snapchat’s solution to the dreaded screenshot problem. If the recipient takes a screenshot, not only will you be informed, but they’ll be given a warning too, which is something, at least.