Some of the standards Delta Chat is based on:
| Tasks | Standards |
|---|---|
| Transport | IMAP v4 (RFC 3501), SMTP (RFC 5321) and Internet Message Format (IMF, RFC 5322) |
| Proxy | SOCKS5 (RFC 1928) |
| Embedded media | MIME Document Series (RFC 2045, RFC 2046), Content-Disposition Header (RFC 2183), Multipart/Related (RFC 2387) |
| Text and Quote encoding | Fixed, Flowed (RFC 3676) |
| Reactions | Reaction: Indicating Summary Reaction to a Message (RFC 9078) |
| Filename encoding | Encoded Words (RFC 2047), Encoded Word Extensions (RFC 2231) |
| Identify server folders | IMAP LIST Extension (RFC 6154) |
| Push | IMAP IDLE (RFC 2177) |
| Quota | IMAP QUOTA extension (RFC 2087) |
| Seen status synchronization | IMAP CONDSTORE extension (RFC 7162) |
| Client/server identification | IMAP ID extension (RFC 2971) |
| Authorization | OAuth2 (RFC 6749) |
| End-to-end encryption | Autocrypt Level 1, OpenPGP (RFC 4880), Security Multiparts for MIME (RFC 1847) and “Mixed Up” Encryption repairing |
| Detect/prevent active attacks | securejoin protocols |
| Compare public keys | openpgp4fpr URI Scheme |
| Header encryption | Header Protection for Cryptographically Protected E-mail |
| Configuration assistance | Autoconfigure and Autodiscover |
| Messenger functions | Chat-over-Email |
| Detect mailing list | List-Id (RFC 2919) and Precedence (RFC 3834) |
| User and chat colors | XEP-0392: Consistent Color Generation |
| Send and receive system messages | Multipart/Report Media Type (RFC 6522) |
| Send and receive contact files | vCard (RFC 6350) |
| Return receipts | Message Disposition Notification (MDN, RFC 8098, RFC 3503) using the Chat-Disposition-Notification-To header |
| Locations | KML (Open Geospatial Consortium, Google Dev) |