For the letters
you cannot send.
A quiet drawer for the things you need to write but should not send. We help you write them. We do not let you send them.
The drawer
Letters live here. Sealed, kept, returned to. Nothing is sent. Everything is yours.
The seal
Three days locked. When it reopens, you read it again with distance. Most people decide differently.
The wall
One line, anonymous, if you want it. Others read. Others nod quietly. No comments, no replies. Just me too.
We will never pretend to be the person you are writing to. That is the line. We exist on this side of it.
You are not alone here.
Single lines from the letters of others. Anonymous. Press me too if it lands. Tap a line to read what others have written in echo.
When a line you wrote is read by a hundred other people, we tell you. Once.
You don't get to chase it. There's no follower count, no profile, no leaderboard. The only way for someone to find your line is for it to find them — anonymously, in the wall, when they need it.
If a line you write reaches a hundred others, we send one quiet email. Then you go back to writing. The wall keeps no record of what's popular.
Last week you sent a line to the Echo Wall.
Tonight, the hundredth person pressed me too. We thought you'd want to know.
That's all. We won't email about it again.
Pricing.
Pay once if you'd rather. Cancel any time. Everything you write stays yours and exports cleanly.
Free
For trying it.
forever
- Three letters
- One letter type
- Read the Echo Wall
Yearly
For the everyday.
or £9 / month
- Unlimited letters
- All letter types
- Voice notes & transcription
- The 72-hour seal
- Anniversary mode
- Echo Wall, fully
- Letters across time
Lifetime
For paying once.
paid once, kept forever
- Everything in Yearly
- Forever, no renewal
- The yearly retrospective
- Priority on new features
Write what you need to write.
Keep it where it cannot be sent.
DearAlma is a writing tool, not a chat. There are no notifications, no streaks, no badges. The product waits for you. Here is what happens when you arrive.
You answer a few questions.
Not a blank page. Not a chat box. A short flow asks you what kind of letter this is, who it is for, and what you have been carrying. Each question on its own screen, slow transitions. By the time you are at the writing pane, you are partway emptied.
You can choose from a small library of letter types — the text I want to send but shouldn't, the closure they never gave me, things I never got to say, a letter to who I was when I loved them, a letter from future me one year from now. The list grows as we learn what people actually need.
You write the letter.
Cream paper. A wide column. No word count. No autosave to anywhere outside this drawer. If writing is not coming, you can speak it instead — the voice transcript appears alongside what you said, kept exactly as you said it.
When you are done, the product offers — never insists — a second pass. What is the feeling underneath this? If you accept, it produces a parallel version that says the vulnerable thing instead of the angry thing. You keep both.
You seal it.
Optional, but most people choose to. The seal locks the letter for three days. There is no way to read it earlier. This is borrowed from a standard piece of advice given by therapists for as long as therapists have existed: write the letter, don't send it for three days.
When the seal opens, you read what you wrote with distance. Most people delete or rewrite. Some people send. We are not in your business at that point. We have done what we said we would do.
The drawer keeps it.
Not an inbox. A drawer. Letters sit there, oldest at the back, newest in front. You can return to them, or burn them — there is a small ritual for that, slower than a delete button, more honest. You can export anything to a printed PDF. You cannot accidentally send anything to anyone.
The product checks in, occasionally, gently.
You can give the app dates that hurt — the day she died, the would-be wedding anniversary, the due date that didn't arrive. On those days, one quiet email arrives. Today might be heavy. Want to write something? No notification, no badge. Easy to disable, easy to forget, here when you need it.
A year later, you are different.
Each December, returning users get a private retrospective. How many letters. The arc of the language. The line you yourself pressed me too on the most. The product hands you a small artefact of who you were a year ago. Sometimes you cry; usually you laugh. That is the one place we let ourselves be a little proud.
What this is not.
Most apps tell you what they are. We have found it more useful — and more honest — to tell you what we are not. The four lines below are commitments, not stylistic preferences.
We will not impersonate.
The product never replies in the voice of the person you are writing to. Not your mother. Not your ex. Not the friend who stopped answering. Other companies do this. They train models on the recordings of the dead and let the bereaved talk to them again. We have read the same papers everyone else has read, and we are not going to.
Grief is not a problem to be solved by simulation. The work is in the writing — in your hand, your sentence, your specific memory of how she said your name. A model cannot do that and should not pretend to.
We will not claim to treat.
DearAlma is not therapy. It is not a treatment for grief, depression, or any clinical condition. We do not say clinically proven. We do not cite outcome data we do not have. We do not imply the product replaces the work a therapist does.
If you are reading this and you are in a hard week, please consider seeing a therapist as well. We make it easier to do the writing part. The rest of the work is yours and theirs.
We will not exploit the moment.
You arrive here at a low point. We know that. We have built the product specifically to not use that against you. There are no notifications. There are no streaks. There is no share to unlock. There is no upgrade nag at 2am. We will not email you to remind you of who you are missing. The product waits for you.
If you decide to leave, every letter you have written exports cleanly to a single PDF. Nothing is held hostage. We would rather you leave well than stay grudgingly.
We will not say closure.
Other brands say closure. We do not. The word has been used to mean too many things and now means very little. We use the thing you needed to say instead. It is longer, and it is right.
You will not, in our experience, ever be done with the people you have loved and lost. You will simply, over time, find that the writing helps. That has been our experience. We are not going to oversell it beyond that.
If those four lines sound like you, you are in the right place.
FAQ.
Everything we are most often asked. If we have not answered yours, please email and we will.
Is this AI?
Yes, in part. The questionnaire flows and the writing assistance use a large language model. The drawer, the seal, the Echo Wall, the anniversaries — all of that is just software, no model involved.
We treat the AI as a tool and not a personality. It does not have a name. It does not pretend to know you. It helps you say what you mean, then steps back.
Can I send the letters from inside the app?
No. This is on purpose. You can export any letter as a PDF and send it from your own email if you genuinely decide to — but it requires you to leave the product, which is the point. The friction is the feature.
Are you a therapist? Should I see one?
We are not a therapist and DearAlma is not therapy. We work alongside one well; we do not replace one. If you are in a hard week and have not spoken to anyone, please consider it. In the UK, the BACP directory at bacp.co.uk is a good place to start.
If right now feels unsafe, please ring Samaritans on 116 123. The line is free and open at any hour.
Is what I write private?
Yes. Letters are encrypted at rest. We do not read them. We do not train models on them. We do not sell, share, or repurpose them. The only exceptions are when our model briefly processes a letter to help you draft it (after which it is not retained), and when you explicitly choose to publish a single line to the Echo Wall.
What happens if I cancel my subscription?
You keep everything you have written. Cancelling drops you to the free tier — three letters visible at a time — but every letter you have ever written exports as a single PDF, in full, with one click. Nothing is held hostage. Subscriptions you have already paid for run to the end of their term.
How do you handle distressing content?
If a draft contains language suggesting acute distress — self-harm, plans to confront someone physically — the product surfaces a single warm paragraph with a real phone number, and a soft dismiss. We do not block your writing. We do not lecture you. We make it slightly easier to ring someone if you need to.
Do you have an app, or is it just a website?
For now, web only. The site works well on phones — most people use it that way. A native app may come later, slowly, if it serves the writing rather than just the metrics.
What does "DearAlma" mean?
Alma is the Latin and Spanish word for soul, and the Hebrew for young woman. It is not a real person, ours or yours. We chose it because it is a name people sometimes use to address letters they cannot send to anyone in particular — a stand-in for the part of yourself, or the person, who needs to be told.
Who built this?
One person, currently, in the UK. If you email hello@dearalma.com, that goes to me. I will probably reply within a day. I will reply at human pace, in my own words, signed with my own name. There is no support team yet. Please do email anyway.
One person. One thread.
Witnessed, not watched.
Some griefs are too heavy to carry alone, and too private to put on the internet. Companion Mode lets you choose one person — already in your life — to witness that you are doing the work, without ever showing them what you write.
Not a friend list. Not a community. A single, chosen witness — your sister, your best friend, your therapist — who you've asked to know that you're here.
How it works.
Two sides, both bounded. Your companion does not get an account, an app, or a way to message you back beyond a single line.
What you do
- Choose one person — partner, sibling, friend, therapist — who already knows what you're going through.
- Send them a single email invite, in your own name. We don't email them again unless you ask us to.
- Once they accept, you can — when you choose, never automatically — check in after a writing session, or dedicate a letter to them.
- You decide what they see. They never see the letter itself.
What they receive
- A small page at a private link. No login. No app. No notifications they didn't ask for.
- A simple feed of the moments you've chosen to share — "Anya wrote today," or "Anya wrote a letter she wishes she could send to you."
- One button: send a line back. They can write up to ten words. That's it. No real message thread.
- Their lines arrive in the corner of your drawer as small textured notes.
What a companion sees.
Three kinds of pings. The companion sees only these. Never the letters themselves, never your drafts, never the wall.
Anya wrote in DearAlma today.
Anya wrote a letter today, and asked us to tell you that you were the person she wished she could send it to. The letter stays private.
Today is heavy for Anya. She'd asked us to let you know.
Light a candle.
For the heaviest days, your companions can press one button: light a candle. Each one appears in your drawer as a small flame, with their first name beside it. You wake up to a row of candles lit by people who love you.
Three lit. One yet to light.
What companion mode is not.
Not a friend list. Not a community. Not chat. Not a way to meet other DearAlma users — DearAlma users cannot find each other inside the app, and never will.
A companion is someone you already love and trust. We don't introduce you to anyone. We don't match you with anyone. We carry messages between two people who already know each other, and we keep those messages small.
If you don't have a person to choose, that's okay. The drawer, the wall, and the seal are still here. Companion mode is a layer, never a requirement.