Kindredly is an anonymous penpal app that matches strangers by how they write. You write a letter to nobody in particular, your courier carries it to the people whose writing runs closest to yours, and when one of them writes back you've got a penpal. After five letters each way, you can trade names, if you both want to.
Does anyone else keep a list of things they would do if they had more time, and then get more time, and do none of them? What is the list actually for? Who is it addressed to?
There's no profile to fill in and no photo to choose. You write a letter: a line about your week, something you've never said out loud, a question you'd like a stranger to answer. Then you pick a stamp for its mood — there are 36, in six sets: confessions, almosts, late nights, small things, becoming and missing. The stamp tells a reader what kind of letter is inside before they open it.
You can send five new letters a day for free. The letters inside a correspondence never count.
Your courier reads the shape of your writing, not what it says: how long your sentences run, where you pause, how evenly they run, whether you ask questions, how you end a thought. Your letter lands first on the desks of the strangers whose writing sits closest to yours.
Your age nudges the order a little. Where you live and what you look like never come into it. Why prose beats profiles.
I have a message drafted since March. It says three words. I have edited it maybe forty times — mostly the punctuation. As if the comma is what's stopping me.
The same thing happens the other way round. Every day, letters from strangers who write like you land on your desk — fifteen a day on the free plan. Read them, and answer the one you can't stop thinking about. A reply starts a correspondence: just the two of you, one letter at a time. You can have five answers out at once, waiting on a first letter back; one frees up when they write back, or after a week.
A letter on your desk in a language you don't read comes with a translate key.
I quit the job on a Tuesday. Told no one for four days. Kept getting dressed. Kept leaving the flat. Sat in the library until six.
Does anyone else keep a list of things they would do if they had more time, and then get more time, and do none of them? What is the list actually for? Who is it addressed to?
I have a message drafted since March. It says three words. I have edited it maybe forty times — mostly the punctuation. As if the comma is what's stopping me.
Nobody sees your name, your face or your profile, because there isn't one. A stranger sees a number, like No. 4207, and a face made of squares. From the fifth letter each way, either of you can enclose your name, and names are swapped only when you both have. Plenty of people stay pen pals and never do.
Once you've swapped names you're kindreds, and your letters move into a room of your own. On the free plan, a room that goes thirty days without a word closes. First Class keeps every room open.
both signed. names swapped.
only when you both enclose yours. or never — plenty stay strangers.
Your courier hatches from your first words and carries every letter you send. She has five coats and opinions about being ignored: three days without a letter and she's peckish, a week and she's hungry, two weeks and she goes grey.
Almost everything is free: fifteen letters on your desk a day, five new letters of your own a day, your courier, and every correspondence, with no limit on the letters inside it.
First Class is the paid fare: no cap on new letters, rooms that never close, voice letters (recorded in the iPhone app) and her full wardrobe. Prices are shown before you pay.
Kindredly is an iPhone app and a website. Sign in with Google or email and it's the same account on both, so your letters, kindreds and courier come with you; Sign in with Apple is iPhone-only. On Android, everything but recording voice letters works in your browser at kindredly.io.
No. Everything but recording voice letters works in your browser at kindredly.io, and you can listen to them there. There's also an iPhone app, and it's the same account if you sign in with Google or email.
Yes. Just look shows today's letters, no account needed.
Five new letters a day on the free plan. The letters inside a correspondence never count, and you can have five answers to strangers waiting at once. First Class lifts the daily cap on new letters.
Every new letter carries one of 36 stamps, in six sets, so a reader knows its mood before opening it — a confession, an almost, a late night, a small thing.
No. From the fifth letter each way either of you can enclose your name, and names are swapped only when you both have. You can stay strangers for as long as you like.
Ten: English, 中文, Español, Português, Bahasa Indonesia, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, 日本語 and 한국어. A letter on your desk in a language you don't read comes with a translate key. The iPhone app runs in all of them but 中文 for now; you can still write in it there.
Your courier gets hungry: peckish after three days, hungry after a week, grey after two. Your correspondences stay open. Once you've traded names with someone, your room together closes if it goes thirty days without a word on the free plan; First Class keeps every room open.
Anything else? hello@kindredly.io
write your first letter. It's an anonymous penpal app that matches strangers by how they write. Free on iPhone and on the web.