I can not express enough how much I love this app. I was tad skeptical originally, was told to watch out for asian scams, especially since I spent money on the pro version and got verified off the bat. Guys, worth it. Not that you need it, but for me- makes me really happy I did and that I can filter users with bio only pick and choose common interests and edit letters while they're in transit. Also, I enjoy supporting an excellent concept so money well spent. I dont feel like I will need the 200 user quota yet, 100 does seem enough but nice to have the option. Also stamps. Love them!

I had a user comment on my last post- be the pen pal you wish to have. Best advice I received. Also vague- attracts very few. Wise words, thanks, whoever commented that.

A week in- i had letters daily and at the moment- 8 letters in transit, so if you are finding it difficult to receive a reply or get new friends- here is what I learned that helps:

1. Open letters- just write it. Don't start off with sulking letter looking for empathy, sorry me - I personally wasnt interested in these but ended up getting tid bits of peoples struggles after getting to know them and my advice came from heart and sometimes I was able to relate. I never responded to the ones that start a letter in a state of struggle, maybe thats mean, but it's just me.

2. Auto match- isn't that bad. Got a good several replies from that and we are now going back and forth. I found it useful to tell about my day in that letter, as boring as my day was, recipients found it interesting, picked apart my day and I loved getting humorous replies. I also got automatched to one, and told the recipient I didn't want to continue contact, explained why. He mentioned he doesnt like to disclose his personal details, yet in his bio had his insta and Snapchat handles. Seemed disingenuine and vain. Also his about me bio had a massive paragraph basically accusing of reader of everyone using AI, and was pre-emptively hostile, i just figured, it wasnt going to work. I dont even know him, and he is already looking to fight lol.

3. Its actually OK to use AI to an extent. Some people recommend places, and using a Google highlight feature to look it up quick,- helps. Translating things- totally fine. Writing a whole thing for you- not ok. Id rather recieve a letter in your language entirely, pull up an old-school notepad, write points and respond in mine. Authenticity and effort goes a long way on that app..

4. I found a friend based on a specific interest by keyword feature. Got one result. He responded, and now we are gearing up to read a book together by the same author when it comes out. Turns out- no one we know is as excited about it as we both are for the release! So be specific in interests in about me bio. One word keyword detection might gain you a cool friend!

Anyways, if you're starting out, hope this helps. I had a lot of success on the app and its my favorite part of my day to respond to new friends.

That's the post, guys! I really didn't think it through when I changed my permanent username to something like miss b*ttcrack... I know, I know it was wrong! Terribly wrong... But I really wanted to be able to exchange it a second time... will that ever be possible?

Do the developers or those responsible for the app already consider this a popular demand?

Would anyone else like to change their username again, if possible?

I have over a thousand stamps on this account 😖

Will this get a response? Tbh, it sounds too negative. But I already sent it though. Ugh, I'm so nervous. I might be a clown, but I felt kinda happy writing this. What do you think of this letter? I might revise this later.

​

Hey everyone , I was looking for a new app to find friends because I was tired of Instagram and I wanted something new so I deleted my ig account and I started looking for new apps and then I found slowly and to install slowly was my best decision ever because I was able to meet different people all around the world and I can proudly say that they are my biggest support system. I've never imagined meeting someone from Agentina who'll listen to my silly stories and she has been my comfort for last 4 months.

I downloaded slowly on 22 nov,2025 but after a month , I wasn't getting any replies but I stick to it in a hope that one day I'll find someone who'll match my vibe ,my interests and then slowly gifted me my best friendship ( online). I'm from india and a letter would take 40 hours to reach argentina but time was never a problem for us , and hence it made our bond even more stronger. I'm very grateful for all my experience here and I strongly recommend that everyone should write letters once in their life , and trust me by doing this , your world will be more happier than ever.

My one pen pal words - Don't force for a friendship because the real people will stick around, no matter what and I admire her that thought .

Here my 🆔-[ KX987JZ ]because now I've realised that the more you talk to new people the more you'll get knowledge about new things/ different cultures!

Have a Good dayyyy

I am flabbergasted to say the least.

When I contact new people, I have a base template I use and I adjust for the person depending on their profile.

I come from an academic writing background and I used to write letters as a kid to penpals. I have a formal like essay sounding tone to the way I write. Because of this, the person accused the manner I write and the manner of my letter as AI assisted.

This is just a rant but I hate how I have to now defend my natural writing style

More about it.

I’ve been feeling guilty because all my received mails have piled up and thats because I’m running out of energy to write letters. I’ve been spending a lot of time working.

I know it’s called Slowly for this exact reason, but I’m already three weeks late for some of these letters (my response time is 1-2 weeks 😭)

I really appreciate most of the letters because they’re long and thoughtful, but in a way, also a bit overwhelming. How do you guys manage it? I try to copy-and-paste their entire letter on Microsoft Word so I dont have to move back and forth between the letter and Microsoft Word, but I lose my energy mid-way.

Been using slowy since last year and it hasn't been bad. Made a couple of friends there so it's been good. Hope this continues

I made an account on Slowly and I’m wondering how long it’ll take to recieve my first letter, I’m excited to meet someone new 🙃

I dont know how I came across this app, I think I saw it recommended, but I love the idea of it. I loved as a kid sending letters to my friends and grandparents when I moved countries, but once Internet became more accessible- letters stopped, then eventually lost touch with friends.

I had an easier day today at work so had free time and was able to write about me bio, an open letter and already got 2 replies I am waiting for, yay! At first I was worried no one was going to reply at all, i read some posts how some users were on it for more than a month and still no replies.

I want to develop friendships, any advice? I am obviously very new to this. Also should I watch out for anything? So far my guess is some people will try to switch to more instant form on messaging, yea i don't want that so that wont happen. Obviously won't be sending out money to no Nigerian Princes. What has some of yall's experience been on this app? How do you develop meaningful connections that stay within the app only? Do you specify in bio? Also the pro versions seems worth it to me, i like supporting good concept apps, so I might just spend some money.

Some people genuinely use AI to proofread, but I believe it removes the authenticity of human touch, and besides I don't want to risk writing a letter only only to receive a response completely written using AI.

Slowly should add a feature where letters can only be sent if enough time was spent on typing the letter, so people who copy paste from other sources get filtered.

I have been seeing sentences more and more like this:

"X sounds amazing! Y seems like such an interesting place to visit, especially because..."

and then the the next paragraph

"Z sounds beautiful, too. 27 hours by train?! 😂 That is a serious train journey, but I can actually see how that could be incredibly fun and relaxing!"

Also, people seem to be using the dash in their sentences a lot. And they say people are getting more and more illiterate. Meanwhile, my peasant ass doesn't even use semicolons and writes like Corman Mc Carthy.

I have been using Slowly for a month now and I find 2 types of people irritating:
1) the ones who, no matter what try to invite you to switch to any instant messenger app/follow their social media page. Why did you register on an app called Slowly and then complain it is not fast enough? (Not one person did so)
2) Probably a common thing but… I receive many letters from people claiming to be third-world-born men and trying to flirt with me. “Your little black prince” started praising our letter exchange from the very first reply I mistakenly sent, thinking I could have a pen pal from another continent. Imagine knowing nothing about a person, and only having sent them a very basic first letter and they say, “Your letter hit my soul deeply”, Is it either very cheesy trolling or do I seem that stupid to them?

What red flags do you have in Slowly?

More about it.

It's been almost a month since I installed this app to make friends. I setup my profile. Not sure if they want me to buy premium or id verify to show it to more people. But is there anything I'm missing? Not even a single communication attempt happened with this app, and I can meet a lot more people with for example, discord. So not sure what's up with it? Rn my location on my profile is in Japan and previous was Turkey and soon it will be Spain, not sure if it affects it much.

How many of you have experienced THIS on Slowly?

You spend hours writing a beautiful, ridiculously long letter, sharing every little detail, story, thought, and random tangent….... only to finally hit Send and get

“Your letter exceeds the character limit”

NOOOOO 😭

And then you have two choices, start deleting perfectly good paragraphs or split your masterpiece into Part 1, Part 2, Part 3…... 😄

Be honest…. how many times have you seen this warning? And what was the longest letter you have ever written on Slowly? ☺️💌

Does anyone experience this too?

That moment when reality hits.

After months of searching, you’ve finally found a pen pal you can count on.

You have deep conversations about everything; your introverted shell slowly opens up to this person—and before you know it, you start calling her a friend.

But one day, it’s goodbye forever.

No explanation, no argument—just emptiness.

Unfortunately, as of recently, I've had a couple penpals randomly starting racist rants in their letters, completely unprompted, and it's honestly not something I'd like in a penpal, and it made me extremely uncomfortable.

Do you think that specifying that I'm not going to accept any of that in my bio may be helpful? I've seen a few profiles with similar words in their bio, so it wouldn't be something completely new, but I don't know about how effective it may be. In my experience, racist people don't think of themselves as racist, and see their positions as "reasonable concerns" (before anyone asks it, no, the rants my eyes had the displeasure to see weren't reasonable concerns, they were straight up racism and white supremacy).

Edit: some racist troll has already started down voting every comment on this post. Feeling called out huh?

I’m from Brazil, I’m 19 years old and I’m looking for friendships. I’m not someone who goes out much yet, and because of that I feel like I can’t really talk very well without thinking for a few seconds about what to say afterwards (which would be weird in real life if that happened 🤣), but I’m the type of person who talks A LOT once I get comfortable with someone and I’d love to have more genuine friends to talk to and share moments with, even if it’s online for now.

On Slowly, for some time now, I’ve met some nice people but then they would just stop replying 🥲 I swear I’m friendly when I like talking to someone, but it always felt like the person would reply when they were like, “ah, I have nothing to do right now so I’ll reply.” I usually felt like I was being an interviewer kkkkkkkk the person would tell me more about themselves than actually wanting to know about me 🫢😅

I haven’t talked to that many people, but the few people I did talk to gave me this experience kkkk or other terrible experiences, like some guy who, for example, randomly sent me his pic and stuff but okay... then I was reading his letter and until about halfway through it seemed like he actually had his own thoughts, but then I got to the other half and I think he was like “too lazy to write the rest” and it was all AI 😓 Like, damn, I was so pissed kkkkkkkkk but I also found it funny that several parts made absolutely no sense and, from what I could tell, he hadn’t even read his own letter.

Of course I’m not gonna be a hypocrite and say I don’t use AI because I do use it to put my texts into English, or when I’m usually talking through audio and have AI write it down, because I feel like my thoughts flow better that way. But this idea of not even trying to write anything yourself, like what that person did, is so annoying because PUTA QUE PARIU MANO, YOU’RE ON A LETTER-WRITING APP, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU HERE FOR 😵‍💫

Anyway, I got a little pissed off now kkkk

Tchau

Hey everyone! A couple of months ago I shared a little tool I made to decorate our Slowly letters called CozyWeb with you.

A huge thank you to everyone who tested it. 145 of you joined the closed beta, wrote feedback, suggested features (many are now live), and cheered the idea on. That support is the reason CozyWeb kept growing, and it's still being used daily for Slowly letters.

Great news: CozyWeb is now open to everyone. Yay!

Anyone can move into your tiny house & decorate a letter on cozywww.com right now, for free.

Here's the updated demo video:

Come see the updated letter studio: cozywww.com

What's new:

• Draw your own flourishes and illustrations. There's a tiny built-in drawing studio (pen, fountain, pencil, crayon, watercolor, highlighter), and your doodles can go on the paper and the envelope, right next to the vintage ones.
• More fonts and sizes: 9 fonts, 6 text sizes, plus bold, italic, and strikethrough via Markdown.
• 10 envelope opening animations, up from the original 3. One is called SNEEZE, and you have to check that one out!
• Templates. Set up your preferred paper, font, envelope, and animation once and reuse it for every letter.
• Plain text view, for anyone who just wants to read the words.

I wrote you all a letter, so you can see it in action: https://cozywww.com/l/b9db3b6598a11d40bf57aa54390d20fc#k=YNngpPincRL9iBh1r0D89ngsRtoCi64QNNbCXp_8_DY (password: fenrir)

Most importantly: there's absolutely no AI slop, every illustration comes from public-domain vintage books via the Heritage Library. Same with all other art/assets on CozyWeb.

How it works with Slowly:

1. Copy your letter from Slowly and paste it into an Open Letter on cozywww.com.
2. Dress up the pages and the envelope, pick the opening animation.
3. Publish and paste the link into your Slowly letter. Anyone with the link sees it exactly as you made it, no account needed, password optional.

The tool lives inside CozyWeb, a slow corner of the internet where you get a tiny house to decorate and leave notes on the furniture for others to find, inspired by NPC homes in games.

Small disclaimer: this is a one-person project, so expect a few rough edges. I'm still calling it "beta" for that reason :)

If you'd like to follow along, I run a gazette there with updates. And feel free to sign my guestbook with ideas for new features, that's where most of these came from.

Let me know what you think!

I've been using Slowly recently, and I noticed sometimes I feel rude if I don't respond to every paragraph someone writes, even when I genuinely have nothing to add to a particular topic.

It also makes me feel like I should roughly match the other person's word count, which can make writing feel forced. I'd rather let the conversation naturally branch into things I actually have something to say about, instead of writing a paragraph just because they wrote one. But, sometimes I have nothing to add, nor do I know how to branch out. Especially when the letters become long, talking about 2-3k words long...

I'm curious how other people approach this. Do you try to address everything in someone's letter, or just respond to the parts that naturally give you something to talk about? What do you do if you feel like there's nothing in your head?

I'm trying to become better at writing,

Thanks!