ThoughtTyped

ThoughtTyped is a messaging app where the person you are writing to watches the message take shape. They see the words as you type them, the deletions as you make them and the rewrites before you settle on one — and then the message you send.

There is no setting to turn this off. Live drafts are the point of the app, not an option within it. If you would rather nobody watched you write, ThoughtTyped is the wrong app for that conversation.

Chats with friends, one-to-one or in groups, with emoji reactions and unsending a message you regret. Thoughts that last a day, and a new prompt every morning. No ads and no analytics.

While you type, your draft appears in a thought bubble on the other person’s screen. Text you delete is shown struck through for a moment and then fades. Pause for long enough and the bubble says you are hesitating.

You always know when you are being watched. While the other person has the conversation open, ThoughtTyped tells you so.

Every sent message has a writing receipt — how long it took, how many words, how much was edited — and occasionally a label such as Bro Was Cooking or Professional Overthinker. They are a joke between the people in the conversation, not a score.

Deleting everything is not the same as saying nothing. Type for a while and then clear it, and the conversation records that you typed for so many seconds and said nothing. Only the duration is kept, never the words.

Follow people by username. When they follow you back, you are friends, and friends can chat. Someone who follows you without you following back is a fan. Follower counts are never public — only you see yours.

Thoughts are short posts that disappear after 24 hours. You choose who sees each one — your friends, or your friends and fans — and they can watch you write it, exactly like a message, with its writing receipt once it is posted.

A new prompt every day. Answer it and everyone else’s answers unlock — along with how long they took to write them.

You can block anyone, remove a fan, and report a person or a post from inside the app.

Drafts are never stored. A draft exists on your phone, in our server’s memory while it is being relayed, and on the screen of whoever is watching. It is discarded when you send or clear it, and it is never written to storage or logs.

Sent messages are stored on our server, hosted by Railway in the United States, together with the numbers behind their writing receipts, so that a conversation is still there when you come back to it. Unsending a message deletes its content.

Thoughts and prompt answers are deleted after 24 hours, receipts and all.

The app talks to our server over an encrypted connection, but ThoughtTyped is not end-to-end encrypted: our server handles message content in order to deliver it and to work out the receipts.

An account is a display name, a username and a password. No email address or phone number is attached to it; people find you by your username. ThoughtTyped is for people aged 13 and over.

Stay signed in keeps you signed in after you close the app. Save username and password fills in the sign-in form next time. The two are separate, both optional, and both kept in your phone’s encrypted storage.

You can delete your account in the app: Me → Settings → Delete account, confirmed with your password. It is immediate and permanent; copies in our daily backups are gone within 7 days.

These documents apply to ThoughtTyped.

For questions or bug reports, see Support.