For now, yes. Chunky Guys is built on the AT Protocol, the same open network Bluesky runs on. Today your account lives on Bluesky, so you sign in with your Bluesky (ATProto) account. We’d like to change that. Running our own sign-up is on our roadmap, so one day you’ll be able to join CG directly. We’re not putting a date on it yet.

Bluesky and Chunky Guys are both apps on the same open network (the AT Protocol). Think of them as different doors into a shared space rather than rival walled gardens. Bluesky is a broad, general social app. Chunky Guys is a home built for bears, cubs, chubbier guys and their admirers, with features and a community shaped around that.

Today CG uses Bluesky for accounts and some of the plumbing underneath. Our aim is for CG to become a sibling of Bluesky rather than a dependent: a peer on the network that stands on its own while still connecting to the wider community. In practice that means running our own sign-up one day, and later on our own moderation. Both are on the roadmap. Cost is the main thing pacing them, so we’re not committing to timings.

Not yet. Signing up directly means CG running its own account system (a PDS, the part of the network that holds your identity and data). It’s the first thing we want to build towards, but it isn’t scheduled or promised. For now, you join with your ATProto/Bluesky account.

Not yet, but it’s the roadmap item we’re keenest on. A PDS is the home for your account and data on the network. Right now that home is Bluesky. We’d like CG to offer its own, so you could have a CG-hosted identity and rely on us instead. No timeline yet, cost is the main hurdle.

Because your Chunky Guys account currently lives on Bluesky, deleting your Bluesky account removes the account CG depends on. You would no longer be able to sign in to CG, and your public data (posts, profile, follows) is removed from the network as part of that deletion. For anything held specifically by us, such as media you’ve shared, contact us at sayhello@chunkyguys.com so we can make sure it’s removed too. This close dependency is one of the reasons running our own account system is on our roadmap.

When you sign in, you log in with Bluesky directly, not with us. We never see or store your password. Instead, Bluesky grants us permission to do specific things on your behalf. Here’s exactly what we ask for and why:

• Your identity (atproto): confirms who you are on the network so we can sign you in. Nothing works without this.
• Acting in your account (transition:generic): lets CG create and delete posts, follows and likes, update your profile, and read your feeds, the things the app needs to do as you use it. This one is broad because the AT Protocol hasn’t yet released fine-grained permissions. The word “transition” is the clue: it’s a temporary stand-in until the network offers narrower options, at which point we’ll ask for less.
• Messages (transition:chat.bsky): lets you send and read direct messages inside CG. Messages currently run through Bluesky’s chat system.
• Your email (transition:email): lets us see the email address on your account, so we can reach you about your account when we need to.

What we don’t do: we don’t use any of this for advertising or profiling, and we don’t act in your account beyond running the features you use. When the AT Protocol ships finer-grained permissions, we intend to move to them, so we’re only ever asking for what we genuinely need.

Because you sign in with your Bluesky account, your password is held by Bluesky, not by Chunky Guys. We never see it or store it, so we can’t reset it for you. To change or reset it, go to Bluesky (in the Bluesky app or at bsky.app) and reset it there.

Changing your Bluesky password won’t log you out of CG. We sign you in using OAuth, not your password, so your CG session keeps working as normal.

The one time you’ll be asked to sign in again is if your session can’t be recovered. If that happens, you’ll be returned to the landing page and simply asked to log in with Bluesky again.

It depends on the type of message, so here’s the honest picture.

Text messages currently run through Bluesky’s chat system, so they’re handled and stored by Bluesky on their infrastructure, under their terms. When we run our own account system in future (see our roadmap), we intend to bring more of this in-house.

Photos and videos you send are handled by us and stored on our own servers in the EU, with the strong data protections that come with UK and EU privacy law. They’re sent using secure, time-limited links, and we never reuse your private media for anything other than delivering it to the person you chose.

One thing to be clear about: messages on Chunky Guys are not end-to-end encrypted. That means that, in principle, they could be accessed on the servers that handle them, in the same way as most mainstream messaging works today. We don’t read your private messages, but we don’t want to imply a level of secrecy that isn’t there. Please bear this in mind with anything especially sensitive.

Whatever you send, our content rules and reporting tools still apply, so you can report anything that breaks them.

Often, yes. Chunky Guys is built on an open, public network, so posts you make are stored openly and can appear on Bluesky and other apps built on the AT Protocol. Some CG-specific features may only display fully inside the CG app, but the underlying data is still public on the network. The simplest way to think about it: treat anything you post as public across the whole network, not just visible in CG.

Muting is quiet and private. When you mute someone, their posts and replies stop showing up for you, and you stop getting notifications from them. They’re never told, and nothing changes on their end, so it’s a low-friction way to tidy your own experience without any confrontation. You can unmute at any time. Muting doesn’t stop them seeing or interacting with your posts; it only changes what you see.

Muting on Chunky Guys works exactly as it does on Bluesky.

Blocking is a firmer, two-way wall. Once you block someone, neither of you can see or interact with the other’s posts, replies, likes or follows, and any existing follow between you is removed. It also stops them messaging you.

One thing worth knowing about the open network: on the AT Protocol, blocks are public. The fact that a block exists is recorded openly, so a determined person could tell they’ve been blocked. Blocking is about cutting off interaction, not about hiding that it happened. If you’d rather act privately, muting is the quieter option. You can unblock at any time.

Blocking on Chunky Guys works exactly as it does on Bluesky.

If someone is harassing you, posting something that breaks the rules, or behaving in a way that worries you, report it. You can report a post or a user from the app using the report option on their profile or on the content itself. Tell us what’s wrong and send it; you don’t need to explain perfectly, just flag it.

For now, reports are passed to Bluesky’s moderation, as CG relies on Bluesky’s moderation system for the time being. Running our own is on our roadmap (see “How is content moderated?” below).

For your own safety: block or mute the person as well as reporting, so you get relief straight away rather than waiting on a review. Don’t feel you have to engage with anyone who’s upsetting you. And if you ever feel genuinely unsafe, or think a crime has taken place, contact your local emergency services or the police, not just us, because there are things only they can deal with.

Today, content moderation on Chunky Guys runs through Bluesky’s moderation system. Because your account and the wider network sit on Bluesky for now, we rely on their moderation and labelling to keep order across the protocol. When you report a post or a user, that report goes to Bluesky’s moderators, and Bluesky’s content labels (for example, labels that hide or add a warning to sensitive content) are honoured in the CG app alongside your own settings.

Our community rules still matter. What’s acceptable on Chunky Guys is set out in our Terms, and serious or repeated breaches can affect your access to CG. If you see something that breaks the rules, please report it (see “How do I flag abuse?”).

Looking further ahead, we’d like to run our own moderation through a dedicated CG labeler: a service that would let us review content and apply our own standards within the CG app, including removing things that have no place here even if they’re allowed elsewhere on the wider network. This is a long-term aim on our roadmap and is some way off, so for now Bluesky’s moderation is what keeps the space in order.

You also stay in control of what you see. Adult and sensitive content visibility is governed by your Bluesky account settings, which you can manage on the Bluesky website.

Not yet, but they’re firmly on our roadmap.

Right now, in line with how the AT Protocol works, profiles are public by default. Private profiles need something the wider network doesn’t quite have yet: an agreed way to handle permissioned data, so that some information can be shared with certain people rather than the whole network.

That specification is being finalised by the Bluesky and AT Protocol community. We’re waiting on final sign-off before we build private profiles on top of it. We’d rather do this properly, on a shared standard, than bolt on something fragile. We can’t give a date, as the timing partly depends on that sign-off, but it’s a feature we’re keen to deliver once the groundwork is in place.

Yes. Under UK and EU data protection law you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, and to receive a copy.

Because CG is built on the open AT Protocol, a lot of your public data (your posts, profile, follows and likes) already lives in your account’s public repository and can be exported through Bluesky. For the data that sits with us specifically, we don’t have an in-app export yet, so email us at sayhello@chunkyguys.com and we’ll put a copy together for you. We aim to respond promptly and within the timeframes the law sets.

If you’d also like to delete your data, see our Privacy Policy, which explains what we remove and how quickly.

When you delete a post, it’s removed from your account’s repository on the network. It will disappear from CG, and from other apps on the protocol, as the deletion propagates. One honest caveat about any open network: once something has been public, other people or services may have already seen or copied it, so we can’t guarantee no copy exists anywhere. Deleting promptly is always best.

Deleting a message currently only removes it from your own view. It does not delete it for the person you sent it to, and message deletion can be limited, because messages are underpinned by Bluesky’s chat system. This applies to both text and to any photos or videos you sent, as they work the same way. If you want media you’ve shared removed from our storage entirely, contact us at sayhello@chunkyguys.com and we’ll handle it as a deletion request (see our Privacy Policy).

More detail on what we keep, and for how long, is in our Privacy Policy. Note that some records, such as order and transaction records from the store, we’re legally required to keep for a period even if you ask us to delete them.

For anything to do with a store order, whether it’s arrived damaged, is faulty, is the wrong item, or hasn’t turned up, email us at sayhello@chunkyguys.com with your order number and we’ll put it right. Your rights on returns, refunds and faulty goods are set out in our Terms.