Sanct to launch in Malaysia on Sept 30 as a free download, bringing a social app for family and close friends only

KUALA LUMPUR: Sanct, a social app made for family and close friends instead of followers, will be available in Malaysia as a free download on the Apple App Store from Wednesday (Sept 30).

Pre-orders are open now: users who pre-order will have the app downloaded to their iPhone automatically on launch day.

The Malaysian launch comes two days after the app went live in Singapore on Monday (Sept 28), and on the same day as Indonesia. With that, Sanct will be available in all three of its first launch countries.

Sanct supports Bahasa Melayu, English, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi. It is free to use and carries no advertisements. An Android version on Google Play is not ready yet.

Friends you have actually met

Unlike most social apps, Sanct does not start with a list of suggested strangers. A user's first friends are added by meeting in person and scanning each other's QR code. Search and friend suggestions only open after a user has five friends, and even then reach only friends of friends.

Users also decide who sees each moment they share: everyone in their circle, selected friends, or only themselves. There is no public feed.

To get started, Malaysians only need to do three things:

1. Pre-order Sanct now through sanct.social; it downloads automatically on Wednesday (Sept 30).

2. Meet a family member or a friend, and scan each other's QR code.

3. Enter the Sanctum together at 6pm.

A beach that opens at 6pm

The Sanctum is a small beach inside the app that opens at 6pm every day. There is a fire to sit by, a shore to walk along and a picnic table by the lake, and users spend the evening there with whoever in their circle turns up.

Sanct founder Sion Abednego said the feature was built with families like many in Malaysia in mind, where one member works in Singapore or in another state while the rest are at home.

"Many Malaysian families have someone across the Causeway, or a child working in Kuala Lumpur while the parents are in the kampung. They cannot have dinner together on a Wednesday, but they can meet at the beach after dinner," he said in a statement.

"My advice is not to download Sanct for yourself. Download it with the one person you would call if your day went wrong, the next time you balik kampung. Scan each other, and meet at the beach at six. Sanct is only the bridge. The people are the point," he added.

What else is in the app

Besides the Sanctum, Sanct has group chats for family and close friends with reactions, voice and video calls, check-ins at real places that only the user's circle can see, a sleep check-in that lets friends know when someone is asleep, and a good-morning screen that shows the night's rest.

Users are also accompanied by Sancty, a small companion inside the app who asks about breakfast and can remind a user that their usual sleep time is near. These habit reminders are optional and switched off by default.

On user data, the company said Sanct does not sell user data to third parties. Sancty processes data only inside the user's own account in order to respond, and the data is not used to train public AI models. The privacy policy is available at https://sanctsocial.app/privacy

Pricing and availability

Sanct is free. Its core features will stay free, while optional premium features will be introduced later. There are no ads in either.

The app is available now on the Apple App Store in Singapore, and from Wednesday (Sept 30) in Malaysia and Indonesia, where it can already be pre-ordered. The Google Play version for Android users is not ready yet.

Sanct Social Pte Ltd is registered in Singapore and was founded by Sion, who is from Indonesia. More than 1,600 people joined the waiting list during its closed beta, and the company ran its first booth at Tech in Asia Conference 2026 in Singapore earlier this month. It has also released a four-episode short film series on YouTube about a family living across a border.

For more information and to pre-order the app, visit https://sanct.social