OnionShare allows you to create secure, anonymous, and disposable services that other people can connect to.

To start OnionShare, choose Applications ▸ Internet ▸ OnionShare.

From the welcome screen of OnionShare, you can choose between 4 different services:

  • Share files

  • Receive files

  • Host a website

  • Chat anonymously

All these services are provided as Tor onion services and are only available through the Tor network. You can share the address of these onion services with other people to create temporary and anonymous communication channels.

People who know their onion addresses can connect to these services from Tor Browser, either in Tails or outside of Tails.

Unlike most Internet services, people using your OnionShare services connect directly to your Tails over the Tor network. Your data is never shared with or stored on any third-party server. Your Tails becomes a temporary and anonymous server.

These services become unavailable as soon as you close OnionShare or shut down Tails.

OnionShare uses different onion addresses each time.

In the future, want to make it possible to store the onion addresses used by OnionShare to the Persistent Storage. (#20136)

Sharing files

With the Share service of OnionShare:

  • You select in OnionShare some files from your Tails that you want to share.

  • People with the onion address can download these files from their Tor Browser.

Since Tails 6.0 (February 2024), the shortcut to share files via OnionShare directly from the Files browser is not available anymore.

Receiving files

With the Receive service of OnionShare:

  • You specify in OnionShare a folder of your Tails in which you want to receive files.

  • People with the onion address can upload files directly to this folder or send you text messages from their Tor Browser.

Hosting a website

With the Website service of OnionShare:

  • You specify in OnionShare a folder that contains HTML pages in your Tails.

  • People with the onion address can visit these HTML pages as a website from their Tor Browser.

Chatting anonymously

With the Chat service of OnionShare:

  • You start a chat room from OnionShare.

  • People with the onion address can enter this chat room from their Tor Browser and chat with you or other people.