About Open When
Why it exists
Most of what we write to the people we love is written in a hurry: a text, a card signed in the car, a comment under a photo. The things that matter most often never get written at all, because the moment to say them has not arrived yet.
An open when letter fixes that. You write it on a calm day, for a hard one: "Open when you can't sleep", "Open when you miss home", "Open when you graduate". People have made them by hand for years, in shoeboxes and on bedroom walls. Open When is the same idea on paper you can send anywhere, with a seal that stays closed until they need it.
What we promise
- Free, with no account needed. You can write, seal and send a letter without signing up for anything. Signing in with Google is there only if you want your shelf on more than one device.
- Private by default. Letters are encrypted when they are stored. Nobody at Open When reads private letters, and only the person you address can open one.
- Yours to delete. Delete a letter before it is opened, after, or delete everything at once.
- Nothing public unless you ask. A writer can share a letter on the public shelf after it has been opened. We remove names and places, and a person reads it before it goes up. Unsent letters are never shown.
The details are in how privacy works and the privacy policy.
Who writes what you read here
The guides, idea lists and example letters on this site are written and edited by the Open When team. The example letters are ours: we wrote them to show what a letter like this can sound like, and they are not real letters from readers. Some of the letters on the public shelf were also written by the team to start it, and the shelf says so. Letters that readers share are marked as shared by the writer.
We never write your letter for you. The moments and prompts are there to help you find a first line, and the rest is yours.
When a page touches grief, heartbreak or a hard night, we keep it plain and point to real help. On the pages about unsent letters, the "Talk to someone now" button points to a free crisis line for your country, or to a directory of free lines where we do not list one.
Photographs
The photographs on our guides come from Pexels and Pixabay, and each one is credited to its photographer underneath.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections, a letter that should not be on the shelf, or a moment you think we are missing: write to [email protected]. A person reads every message.