Mandarin IM Sign in

A messenger with your own number, statuses and old‑school smileys

Everything you expect from a messenger today: groups, channels, reactions and one history on every device. And everything people loved ICQ for. Chat from your phone, your browser, or even QIP.

Open the web app Google Play

Free. Sign in with your phone number. Over 600,000 installs on Google Play.

Mandarin Web: the group Class of 2006 with a reply, a mention and reactions, the chat list on the left
Mandarin for Android: the same chats, a channel and kolobok smileys in the previews

Everything you need to keep in touch today

  • Groups and channels

    Chats for your class, your family or your team, and channels for news. Replies, mentions and pinned messages.

  • Reactions and edits

    React, reply and forward. Fix a message you sent, or delete it for everyone.

  • One history everywhere

    Your phone, your browser and a classic client share one history. Sign in to the web app with a QR code from your phone.

  • Files and media

    Photos, videos and documents open right in the chat. A file can also go straight to a friend without being stored on the server.

  • Sign in by phone

    Your account is tied to your phone number, and the first sign-in creates it. You see every session and can end the ones you don't need.

  • Privacy

    You decide who sees your status, who can add you to groups and who can find you by your phone number.

Like the ICQ you remember

Mandarin grew out of an ICQ client and kept what people loved ICQ for.

Contacts in Mandarin for Android: each with a status clover and a status of their own with an emoji, such as Listening to Radiohead

  • Max Orlov18082

    A number of your own

    Like an ICQ UIN: a short number that stays yours even when your phone number changes. Share it instead of your phone number.

    • Available
    • Away
    • Busy
    • Invisible

    Statuses

    Available, away, busy or invisible. Plus a status of your own with an emoji and a caption, like an X-Status, say “🎧 Listening to Radiohead”. It can expire when you choose.

    • A kolobok smiles
    • A kolobok waves hello
    • A kolobok wears shades
    • A kolobok winks
    • A kolobok gives a thumbs up
    • A kolobok laughs

    Kolobok smileys

    The very set of round yellow smileys Mandarin users loved. Type :-) or *HI* and a kolobok shows up in the chat.

Classic clients work too

Mandarin speaks OSCAR, the protocol ICQ ran on. Your Mandarin number works as a UIN: sign in from QIP, Miranda, Jimm, Pidgin or Adium, and your friends see you in their contact list.

  1. Sign up with your phone number in the web app or the Android app.
  2. Set a password for ICQ (6 to 8 characters) in Mandarin, under Other protocols.
  3. In your classic client, enter the server oscar.mandarin.im, port 5190, your Mandarin number and that password.

Classic clients get direct messages, statuses, profiles, avatars and file transfer. Groups, channels and reactions live only in the Mandarin apps. As with the old ICQ, a classic client's connection to the server isn't encrypted.

Old ICQ UINs and passwords won't work here: Mandarin is a separate service, and your number will be a new one.

Jimm's contact list on a feature phone

Sixteen years of Mandarin

  1. The contact list of Mandarin for J2ME The main menu of Mandarin for J2ME: status, X-Status, privacy

    Mandarin for feature phones

    The first version of the J2ME ICQ client: an orange theme, X-Statuses and privacy lists.

  2. Mandarin for Android in 2014: a chat and the panel of kolobok smileys

    Mandarin for Android

    It stayed online in the background without draining the battery and delivered messages even when the network dropped. Over 600,000 installs on Google Play.

  3. ICQ shuts down

    ICQ closed for good. Mandarin was left without a network, and so were QIP, Miranda and Jimm.

  4. Mandarin for Android today: groups, a channel, status clovers and kolobok smileys in the chats

    Mandarin IM

    A network of its own, new apps and the same short number. And QIP, Miranda and Jimm are back online, on our server.

Come over to Mandarin

It's free. All you need is a phone number: the first sign-in creates your account.

Open the web app Google Play