The questions people ask
The things people email to ask, answered by the person who would otherwise have to answer the email. If yours is not here, it is still hello@chonkfinder.app.
- What is Chonk Finder?
- You are walking somewhere. There is a cat. You stop, obviously. Chonk Finder is the app that makes the stopping worth something: photograph the cat and you get a trading card of it, with a name, a Chonk Level out of ten, and two attacks it never agreed to. The cat goes on a shared map, and when four different people have found the same one, it becomes a Chonk and the four of them are on its card for good. Free, iPhone and Android, no sign-up.
- Is it free?
- Yes. No sign-up, no ads, nothing to subscribe to. Pick a username and go. The only money in the whole thing is printed cards, if you want your cats on actual card stock, and most people never buy any.
- Is this just Pokémon GO with cats?
- Yes, in the ways that matter: a map, a walk, a collection, rarities, a leaderboard, the same itch. No, in that the cats are real, which changes the rules. Nothing gets thrown at them. Nothing fights. They are not where the game says they will be, because they have moved, and one of them will eventually bite you. And a cat takes four people, not one, so the useful move is not a better phone, it is a friend.
- What is a chonk?
- A fat cat, said fondly. The internet settled this around 2018, chart and all, ranking cats from "a fine boi" upward, and the word stuck because nothing else quite does the job. In this app a Chonk is also a thing you can measure: a cat that four different people have each found. Which means a lean cat with a fan club is a Chonk, and the roundest animal on your street is merely chonky until three of your neighbours agree with you.
- What happens when I find a cat nobody has found?
- You are its First Finder, and that is permanent. The app writes it a name and a card on the spot, unless it is wearing a collar, in which case you get asked what the tag says, because a cat’s real name beats anything a computer is going to come up with.
- How does it know it is the same cat?
- It looks at where you are standing, works out which known cats live around there, and compares your photo with those. Cats do not have fingerprints, and "ginger tabby, medium, unimpressed" describes a good share of the animals on earth, so it does get some wrong. When it does, tap "Not this cat?" on the photo. A person reads it. Nothing moves on the map until they have.
- What are First Finders?
- The first four people to find a cat, listed under it in order, permanently. Nothing overwrites them, ever. It is the only thing in the app you cannot lose, and the reason people text their friends "go to the fish shop, now".
- What is Chonk’s Favorite?
- Whoever has found a particular cat the most times gets a small crown on it. Unlike First Finder, it can be taken off you, and it will be, and you are told when it happens, which is exactly as annoying as it sounds. That is the point.
- How do points work?
- Discovering a cat nobody has found: 100. Second finder: 75. Third: 60. Fourth: 80, more than the third, because the fourth is the one who turns it into a Chonk. Anyone after that: 15. Re-finding a cat you already have: 5, with a cooldown, because otherwise somebody would spend an afternoon outside one cat’s house. A friend who joins on your invite is 50, and 25 more when they find their first cat. The numbers live in a config file and I retune them, so do not build a personality on them.
- What is on a card?
- The photo you took, the cat’s name, a Chonk Level from 1 to 10, a rarity from common to legendary, its coat, and where you met it. Underneath: the First Finders, the Chonk’s Favorite crown, and your own standing with that cat. The stats are generated from the photo, so nobody can talk their cat into being legendary.
- Can I put my own cat on it?
- Yes, and nearly everybody does it in the first two minutes. A photo, a name, a few taps for the personality, and the card is written from those, so a food-obsessed shouter gets attacks about food and shouting. Your name for it sticks. It goes on the map as yours with you as First Finder, and your neighbours can still find it and turn it into a Chonk, which is the best part.
- Somebody found my cat. Can I get it taken off?
- Yes. Email hello@chonkfinder.app and it comes off. No form, no argument, no attempt to talk you round. The animal outranks the game.
- Is this safe for the cats?
- It is the rule the rest is built around, so here is the honest version. The public map shows the area a cat lives in, never a doorstep, and only somebody who has found a cat themselves sees exactly where they met it. Corrections and flags go to a person rather than moving a pin live, because the fast version of that feature is a way to make somebody’s cat findable. And the terms ask you to photograph from where you are allowed to be, and to leave alone any cat that would rather you did. A cat walking away has answered you.
- Does it work with no signal?
- Yes, and one person is the reason it does. She was going somewhere remote for a fortnight and pointed out that she would not be able to open the app at all, never mind photograph anything. So it opens from what it saved last time instead of waiting on the network, and a catch made with no signal waits in a queue until there is one. You get one photograph of a cat, because the cat leaves. That queue is the only part of this app that is not allowed to lose anything.
- Where does it work?
- Anywhere with cats and a phone, which is most places. There are finds on several continents already. If nobody has played in your town, every cat in it is undiscovered, and the first person down the street gets all of them.
- What languages is it in?
- English, French, Spanish and Japanese. A cat keeps whatever name its finder gave it, in whatever language they gave it, wherever it turns up.
- Can I get the cards printed?
- Yes, and they are proper ones: 2.5 by 3.5 inches, card stock, 300 DPI, the size of every trading card you have held. A pack of ten is $29 with the postage in. I print and post them by hand, so "not instant" is carrying some weight in that sentence. You can only get cards of cats you have actually met, which is deliberate.
- Who makes this?
- Me, one person in Victoria, British Columbia, who kept turning up late to things because of cats. It went on both app stores in August 2026. The travel guides on this site are mine too, written by hand with the sources listed at the bottom of each one, which is why there are not more of them.
- What do you keep about me?
- Your username, your photos, and where you were standing when you took them, which is the bit that puts the cat on the map. No sign-up means no email and no password, unless you add a phone number so your collection survives a new phone. Settings, then Delete account, takes all of it, and it does not come back. The privacy policy lists the lot.
- Something is broken. Who do I tell?
- hello@chonkfinder.app. I read those.
Still reading? The app is the quicker answer.
More on this site: what the app is for, how to keep track of the cats on your street, why people call it Pokémon GO for cats, where to find cats when you travel, and support.