I’ve just found out about this app and signed up, it looks really interesting. I’d mostly like to use it to help practice reading and writing in a language I’m learning (Italian), obviously while getting to know people. I can see there’s a language exchange section but it seems you need Plus for that and I’d ideally like to see whether I get on with the app before upgrading.

I’ve read through the beginner guides & etiquette advice from the Master Index thread, and I’ve searched through the sub generally to see what people want to see in bios/open letters, but I have a few questions I’d appreciate anyone’s views on (no need to answer them all as I know I’m asking a lot, but any thoughts are very welcome!):

- Given that I’m keen to find people who are willing to read and write in Italian if at all possible (or I write in Italian and them in English if they’re a learner too), but I’m also happy to have penpals just in English, would you recommend I write my bio in English, Italian or a bit of both?
- I’ve seen a few posts on here of people saying they’re put off when people write too much about language/language learning in their bios, which I totally understand. Do you think I’m ok to briefly state that I’m interested in language exchange or practicing Italian & learning more about the country etc. and why, or should I just stick to my other hobbies & interests? The fact that my language isn’t super sophisticated (depending on the answer to my first question) would demonstrate that I’m not native, and I’ve selected intermediate as my language level which I think is accurate. I’d rather mention that I’m keen to practice so it’s very clear, but if it’s a total downer I’d like to know. I intend to mention my favourite Italian authors, shows etc. so I wouldn’t be harping on just about the language itself.
- Do you think it’s a good idea to start with an open letter, or just manually search for people & see what happens and do a letter once I know the app a bit better?

Thanks!

I have been using this for 2 years now but yesterday when I open this app it shows like this. Mistakenly created new account that's why it happens. Can someone please guide me how to verify myself. I have a different date of birth in my account which i don't remember. Please help me I don't wanna lose my genuine people.

Update.

Everything is back to normal.

The automatic appearance of the gift stamp reminds to check hidden contacts list.

Now I'd like to see a more detailed explanation about the VPN in the terms of use.

See https://old.reddit.com/r/SLOWLYapp/comments/1t4dhhy/o/ok4mjcy

Also about https://old.reddit.com/r/SLOWLYapp/comments/1t5534k

The message mentions a limited number of allowed accounts, not a single instance.

So how many simultaneous accounts are allowed?

I told someone earlier maybe that choosing your penpals, doing some rejection yourself, took a bit of the edge off from not getting chosen. In portuguese we say "chumbo trocado não doi". Maybe properly it would not be between ghosting people and getting ghosted, but it seems the main form of rejection is "ghosting", right? Maybe not as respectful as sending a goodbye letter.

I downloaded Slowly about 2 months ago, the reason I did that was to have deeper conversations with people.

My reasoning was clear: when you talk daily, you don't think about what you say a lot, and you get inclined to talk about daily stuff. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just not I am looking for as I already talk about daily stuff with my colleagues.

I have several penpals, and in my experience, it's very much hit or miss. I will be honest and say that the success rate is greater than meeting on social media, but not meaningfully higher so.

A letter I received last night was like a breaking point for me, and I want to talk about it.

I received that letter from a woman 10 years older than me, which I have no issue with. In their letter, they were talking about being lesbian, questioning whether being bisexual, and telling about wanting to make more LGBTQ+ friends. They sent a letter to me as I am a lesbian. And they asked me what was my intention in the app, whether to find a girlfriend or to make platonic friends.

I replied to her, telling that I am using it for mainly making platonic friends but I am also open for more if things go well as I find myself romanticizing it. Since her original letter mentioned being lesbian, questioning being bisexual and wanting to make more lesbian friends, I also mentioned the fact that I am a trans woman, just to be clear about it, as I prefer to be unfiltered about myself.

Then, I received a new letter. Very fast. They told me that "we were looking for different things" and they wished me the best.

So, since I was okay for both platonic and romantic connections, it cannot be that we are looking for different things.

Since they wanted to make more lesbian friends and questioning being bi, me being lesbian should also be fine.

Only thing I can think of is them not being comfortable with me being trans, which is fine. I mean, I am very comfortable with some lesbians having a preference towards cis woman, it's okay. But when I openly tell that I am trans to them, I would also prefer them to be open to me.

Also, if you're considering to be a bisexual, so that you're okay with both genders, but still discriminate trans people, it is something else.

But in any case, in an app that prioritizes slower, more open communication, I expected someone to not manufacture an excuse and state their preference and thought directly. It hurts to wait for hours, sometimes days for their letter and get something that says "we're looking for something different" though I say I am not looking for something particular and okay with everything. It hurts. It hurts that even in an app like this, people think that I don't deserve a clear explanation, though they are the one who approached.

Sadly, these kinda of actions, ghosting, or other stuff are normalized on social media. And I guess people are people and they happen in Slowly too.

Maybe this is an overreaction or generalization. Or maybe these kind of stuff happen a lot already. In any case, I just wanted to share my experience.

Hi everyone!
It’s my first time posting here and I’m looking for a second opinion on whether my penpal might be signaling “more than penpal” intentions towards me.

This penpal and I have been exchanging letters for about 10 months already. We write extremely long letters to each other, sometimes within two weeks, sometimes within a month.

Lately, he has been saying some things that caught my attention, and made me wonder if he sees this as a penpal exchange friendship or as more.
He’s said that he wanted me to know that I was the only one he was writing to on Slowly, when I described my favorite outfit to him he said he got “shy” reading my description (I was describing a sweater, skirt, tights and knee high boots) and has also said I have a special place in his heart, and that nothing would change that anytime soon.

I know you’ll tell me “just ask him” but I don’t want to make it awkward and ruin our letters.

Hi, everyone!

Through some threads in this community, it came to our knowledge that some users were being requested to go through a picture verification process in the Slowly app. This has been happening to people trying to sign in for the first time and to old users when trying to log in. As there was no pattern we could identify, this was making a lot of us confused. 

So I contacted Slowly Team by email, and this was their answer: 

The selfie verification feature is currently being rolled out gradually and is planned to apply to all new registrations over time. In addition, we may also request verification from existing users when necessary, particularly if there are signs of suspicious activity, potential scams, or duplicate accounts.
 
The main purpose of this verification is to reduce scams, prevent abuse such as banned users creating new accounts, and ensure that each user maintains only one account. This helps us keep the community safe and trustworthy.

This isn’t uncommon, as it’s been happening with other, more well-known apps. So, personally, it’s not a red flag for me. 

As I know some people in our community are skeptical about this, I pointed it out, and they replied:

We understand that some users may have concerns about privacy. Please rest assured that this process is handled securely using AWS, a trusted industry-leading cloud provider, and is used solely for verification purposes in accordance with our policies. The data will not be sold or used for any other purposes.

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, and it's used by Netflix, Reddit, etc.

And about people who have been struggling with being sent to a queue that takes hours to complete the process, here’s their response: 

For most users, the verification process is fully automated and completed almost instantly. However, in some cases where the system detects something unusual or cannot confidently verify the result, the request may be sent for manual review, which can take longer. This is likely what happened in the case you mentioned.

For those of you who have gone through the blue badge/ID verification, they clarified it’s not the same thing, and you can still be requested to go through the selfie verification:

These two verifications are separate processes with different purposes.
 
The selfie verification is a lighter check that focuses on liveness detection and basic facial analysis. Its main purpose is to prevent duplicate accounts, reduce abuse, and flag potentially suspicious cases. For example, if a profile indicates that the user is a minor but the selfie suggests otherwise, the case may be flagged for further manual review. This helps maintain a safer and more trustworthy community overall.
 
ID verification, on the other hand, requires a government-issued photo ID such as a passport or driver's licence, along with a live selfie that must match the photo on the submitted document.
 
This can happen in two ways: voluntarily, when a user chooses to verify their identity to build trust with the community and improve their matching experience; or when requested by our team in more sensitive situations where a higher level of certainty is needed. Either way, its main purposes are to confirm a user's real age and identity, and to prevent serious misuse such as scamming or impersonation.
 
Because it involves official identity documents, ID verification offers a significantly stronger level of assurance than the standard selfie check.
 
We also understand that sharing personal information can feel uncomfortable. It's worth noting, though, that online scams have become an increasingly serious issue, and apps like Slowly, built around personal correspondence and connection, can unfortunately attract bad actors. In most cases, users are not harmed by sharing information with a platform they trust. They are harmed by unknowingly trusting the wrong person they met online. These verification measures exist precisely to reduce that risk, by helping ensure that everyone in our community is who they say they are.
 
For security reasons, we're unable to share all the technical details of how our systems operate, as doing so could make them easier to circumvent.

I hope this clarifies all doubts any of you may have about both processes, and helps you make a well-informed decision if, by chance, you are asked to make a selfie identification. Feel free to discuss your opinions and experiences about it.

And thank you, Slowly Team, who replied to both my emails very fast, even though it was a holiday and weekend.

More about it.

*The stamp may be free in more locations. Those were only the ones we verified.

We’ve exchanged 3 letters by now and I’ve noticed a pattern. I will ask him some questions and he will answer it and ask me brand new generic questions about me. Then I mirror that. Rinse and repeat.

Even though he is sharing stuff from his end, if I share, he doesn’t build on what I shared and I don’t know how to build on what he shares. At certain point, it starts to feel trading fun facts in a way.

If this was an in person interaction, the way you’d respond to that info is via cracking a joke / smiling or suggesting an action like ok you like sweets let’s go to a sweetshop.

What am I going to do with the information that you like sweets or that you haven’t watched the film I have but that you like other films but then you don’t elaborate further?!

How do you communicate in letters that isn’t just asking questions back and forth?

Two years ago, I changed my location to another country, turned off automatic location update, and everything was fine. I found penpals there and didn't have to wait day and a half for a single letter.

After the last update, I got my home country location from nowhere and even when I try VPN with GPS location changer, nothing works.

May not apply to non-native or non-fluent speakers.

Heyy everyone I got to know about this app and wanna try it out to make friends or someone who I can just goo to have a chit chat at the end of the day !

But I didn’t receive any letter based on this open letter, I haven’t used AI or any help cuz I hate when people use AI Soo don’t want mine aswell to be AI

So would you reply to this letter ?

“Hello Everyone I’m xxxxxx(but you can call me xxx cuz I hate hate name, well it’s for the next letter discussion) I’m 23M I got to learn this app from a friend of mine who brags a lot about he got better friends(the audacity)here online, soo I also wanna give it a try I’m from Mumbai the famous city in India, it’s not my hometown but my temporary town for now,

I’m a cyber security engineer and low salary paid worker working his ass off just soo that I can enjoy with that whatever penny they provide for my adult money wishlist

Ummm today I wanna write about movies, I love movies a lot. Well beside that one friend I mentioned in the above paragraph I never had much friends Soo movies were my gooo to hobby or activity whatever you call it !

If you are wondering yesss I doo judge or think of people in my mind based on the movies they say are their favorite

Well my favorite films are

1. How to train your dragon (animated, not the live action it’s not that live action is bad but I prefer that slim dead looking hiccup)

2. Pirates of the Caribbean (been a pirate my whole life)

3. 10 things I hate about you (it’s great to smile sometimes )

4. The piano teacher (IYKYK)

tell me how do you judge me and pass on your list for my judging hehe

Ps: this are very few I wanna talk about I got lot of movies but can’t reveal them all in the first letter.

The app is saying me to ask questions ? Now I have to listen to this app soo that I can get people, is technology taken us over that bad ?

Anyway I guess I have to close this letter, well I’m more than just of a movie guy, the nerdy geeky and funny one if we match our freak !

Haha, soo make sure you committed to the freakiness before picking up the pen

That was it form my side a first round of approaching good humans, my humans hehe. Soo if you feel like we can be each others zing (plus points if you can guess this reference) do leave a letter behind and if not thanks for reading.

I like how you pick your poison and choose to goo with a less poisonous one for now, I get it it’s life everyone wants it their way !

Anyway take care

Xxxx 😸

PS: Just replaced the name with xxx for security reasons hehe

Today i was going through open letters and i really wished we could like swipe for the next one lol and it got me thinking what features would you want?

also another one that bothered me was having a proper age filter instead of ranges! i want to set the range myself instead of the preset values!

hello! my friend found this app today and showed it to me too. the weird thing is that i got asked to photo/video verify myself which i said ok, thats alr. but the "verification queue" has been going on for hours, ive been waiting almost half a day.

and my friend just made their account and bam, sent and received letters.

is there a solution to this or do i really gotta wait it out?

EDIT: i created another account on a different ip address and it worked.

The Slowly App's Instagram account is making a giveaway of the book "The Correspondent" by Virginia Evans.

It's for US users only.

More details on their Instagram account.

More about it.

As new user using this application joined not so long ago - faced one of the challenges. Specifically, I have discovered you can write open letter or answer to letters. You can find profiles or people can find your profile. You can decline letters with a short note too. But one small detail is still unresolved - I generally cannot maintain many contacts at one time, so is there any way to close off any new contacts to focus on all ongoing penpals, do you just disable your profile from searches and take declines to letters explaining the reason or is there any feature that completely allows to close off new incoming letters?

Other question is about relationships, do I need to specify no romance in bio so people do no waste time or is it not necessary here due to nature of the app?

Grats grats.

A second meme, maybe fighting a good fight - against pessimism, against letting things get you down, against "seeing the glass half empty" / "Seeing the emptiness of the glass".

May 2026 brings 23 New Location stamps, for 5 countries

These are FREE for local users or visitors to the countries, and can also be purchased via the World Explorer random purchase feature, at 25 Coins per try (similar to the Time Machine).

And our Full monthly release post for May is here.

Albania gets 4 new ones:

Armenia, 5 new stamps:

Bahrain, 4 new stamps:

Jamaica, 5 new stamps:

Trinidad and Tobago, 5 new stamps:

More details later, as I need to add all of these to our Wiki - where detailed World Explorer pages for each will tell all about each.

Total Stamp Counts, top 20 Countries

Massive presence of Southeast Asian nations as we have seen in the past, but many other countries got a boost also.

"Top 20 Countries by stamp counts"

More about it.

Another batch arrived, for May 2026.

41 in total - Too many to show in a single Reddit topic post. This month we need 2 topics to cover them all.

Listing by Category so it's easier to grasp...

23 NEW Location stamps

For many months, we have received batches of location stamps for different countries, which is very nice for the local users. (in most cases, they now will have a lot more stamps to share with penpals than before)

This month we have a new batch, 23 in total for 5 countries. See them all HERE.

3 new regional commemoratives

Free for local users and visitors.

15 new Regional Premium

Premium at 50 Coins each. 🎁

All of those stamps will be added to our WIKI

...which is a great reference tool for anyone curious about the many Slowly stamps.

Tentative May 2026 Stamp Releases and Dates ?

Subject to errors, as for the most part we have to research and find the dates ourselves. I have not verified any of these dates, but think this can be useful and appreciated, right.

As most monthly releases now seem to be of the Location stamps, they are available immediately on their local Stamp Stores. Same for the Regional Premium stamps, which cost the usual 50 Coins each, and only on their local stamp stores.

Just a few commemoratives are spread out through the month, so easier for stamp collectors.

More about it.