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Friends

The Friends tab is your address book. It exists to save you work: once someone is a confirmed friend, you can drop them into any group instantly, without minting and sending an invite link every time.

It is not a social network. There is no directory to search, no way to look someone up, and nobody can add you without you accepting an invite first.

Inviting someone new​

Tap the invite button at the top of the Friends tab. FEN creates an invite link and offers to share or copy it — send it however you like.

Two things worth knowing:

  • The link expires after 24 hours. If it goes unused, mint a new one.
  • The link contains a key. Anyone who opens it can join as that invitee, so send it through a channel you trust, and to one person.

Pending invites​

An invite you've sent appears in the list straight away as Invite sent — waiting to join. It becomes a normal friend entry once the other person joins and your device next syncs — remember that FEN has no push, so this can take until the next refresh.

Each pending entry has two actions:

  • Copy invite link — puts the same link back on your clipboard, for when you minted it and then lost it. The original 24-hour deadline still applies.
  • Delete invite — withdraws it.

Expired and withdrawn invites drop off the list on their own.

Joining an invite you received​

Tapping an invite link normally opens FEN and asks whether you want to join.

If the link doesn't open the app — some messengers rewrite links, and links copied out of an email often arrive as plain text — use the paste button at the top of the Friends tab instead. It reads the link from your clipboard and runs the same flow.

Joining someone's group invite doesn't require a storage backend of your own. You can participate fully — add expenses, settle up — using the backend the group owner provides.

Friend details​

Tap a confirmed friend to open their page, where you can set your name for this friend. That name is local to your device: it changes how you see them, never how anyone else does.

The list also flags a few states:

  • owes you / you owe — a summary across the groups you share.
  • Direct invite unavailable — the private channel between the two of you isn't usable, so adding them to a group will fall back to an invite link.
  • Removed you — they unfriended you from their side.

Deleting a friend​

Delete friend on the friend's page removes them from your list and tears down the private channel between you.

It does not remove them from groups you share, and it doesn't touch any expense or balance — deleting a friend is about your address book, not about the money. To remove someone from a group, use ⋮ › Remove member inside that group.

How friends speed up groups​

Inside any group, Members › Add a known friend lists confirmed friends who aren't in that group yet. Picking one adds them directly — no link, no expiry, no waiting for them to tap anything.

This works over the private channel established when you became friends. If that channel isn't available, the app tells you and offers an invite link instead.