Yes. Only your city and country are shown, never your name.

Can I install Seabottles as an app?

Yes, and you don't need an app store: you install it right from your browser. It sits on your home screen like any other app and opens full screen. On iPhone and iPad, in Safari: tap Share — the square with the arrow pointing up — and choose “Add to Home Screen.” On Android, in Chrome: open the three-dot menu ⋮ and choose “Install app” (or “Add to Home screen”). Often the browser offers it on its own. On a computer, in Chrome or Edge: an install icon appears at the right end of the address bar. When your browser allows it, there's also an “Install the app” shortcut at the top of this Help page and in My Sea. It takes up almost no space and doesn't create a second account — it's the same one, with the same bottles and the same chats — and it works even when you lose signal. On iPhone, installing it is also the only way notifications can reach you.

When I installed it, Google showed me a warning that says “Unsafe app blocked.” Is something wrong?

Don't worry: that warning says nothing bad about Seabottles or your data. When you install from Chrome, Google builds a small package that wraps the page to give it its own icon and window. Play Protect — Google's security check — sometimes objects to the way that package is built. The problem is in Google's packaging, not in the app, which is why it shows up on some phones and not on others. You have two options: tap More details and then Install anyway, or — better — update Chrome from the Play Store and try again. An up-to-date Chrome asks for a new package, and the warning won't appear. In the meantime, you're not missing anything: Seabottles works just the same in your browser, with the same account. The warning only shows up when you install.

How is Seabottles kept afloat? Can I help?

No ads, no selling your data, no measuring you. Keeping Seabottles afloat costs money, and for now the person who looks after it pays for it. If something you found here helped you, you can read how the sea stays afloat at seabottles.org/en/keep-the-sea-afloat. For now, voluntary contributions are only available in Argentina. They get you nothing in return and change nothing: not who receives your bottles, not how far they go, not the luck of the draw. There are no badges and no lists of who contributes. And if you can't or don't want to, that's fine. The best way to keep the sea afloat is still to write and reply.

Can I change my city and country?

Yes, and it's worth checking. When you first open the app, it suggests a city based on your device's time zone. It never asks for your location, and it never looks at it. If it got it right, leave it. If not, fix it right there, or later from My Sea. It's what appears on the postmark of your bottles, so it's the only thing other people will know about where you are. You can leave the city blank and show just the country.

What happens if I switch phones or clear my browser?

Your account lives in this browser. If you clear it or switch phones, the account is lost: your bottles stay in the sea, but they're no longer yours, and you won't see their replies again. To keep that from happening, you can link it to Google in My Sea → Save your account. It's not required, and no one is rushing you. But it's the only thing that ties your sea to you instead of to the browser.

If I save my account with Google, does it stop being anonymous?

No. Google is only used to recognize you when you come back. Your name and email are never shown to anyone and never travel with any bottle. Your bottles are signed the same as always: “Someone from your city”. It's the same account as before, with the same bottles and the same chats. No new one is created.

What is a passkey, and why doesn't it always show up?

It lets you sign in with your fingerprint, your face, or your phone's PIN, with no password. The row shows up after you've saved your account with Google: the account first needs something to anchor to, and only then can a passkey be added. The passkey lives on that phone, so if you switch phones or lose it, Google is how you get back in.

Can I take my data with me or close my account?

Both, from My Sea. Get a copy of my data downloads a file with everything that's yours and keeps a record of the request. If you need to ask by email, we reply within 30 days at most. Close my account and delete my data asks you to confirm in two steps, and it really does delete everything: your bottles, your chats, and your account. The only thing we keep is evidence from serious cases that the law requires us to hold on to, and the legal pages explain that.

People chosen at random, anywhere in the world, who read your language. While it's afloat, the sea offers it to a handful of people at a time. If nobody opens it, the sea gives it back to the current so others can find it. The same goes for the ones that reach your shore: if you don't open one within a few days, the tide carries it off and it travels on toward another shore. You don't choose who reads it. The current does.

What language do the bottles come in?

Yours. Bottles only travel between people who use the same language: you get the ones written in your account's language, and yours reach people who read it. Open Sea shows only bottles in your language, too. You choose it the first time you open Seabottles, and you can change it anytime under Save your account → Language.

Topics. Your bottle sails the seas you choose (Life, Love, Secrets…) and reaches the people exploring those seas. Every bottle you receive shows which sea it came from.

The open water where every bottle in your language floats. You can read them all, but you can only reply to the ones the current leaves on your shore. You go in through a sea (Life, Love, Secrets…) and the tide brings you bottles a handful at a time, never all at once. You can see them floating or in a grid, have the current bring in new ones, look at recent ones or ones from your region, and search by keyword.

What can I do when I open a bottle in Open Sea?

Quiet gestures. Resonate (“this one reached me”: anonymous, no counters; it goes into Kept, and the person who wrote it only gets a warm notification, with no name or number), Keep, Share (text and link, no author), and Pass it on, which lets it keep going without you. No comments, no rankings, no “most popular.”

What is fishing for a bottle?

Another way to find one, in Open Sea. You hold your finger on the water and the line goes down: the longer you wait, the deeper it goes. And depth is time. The newly cast bottles float near the top, and the ones that have been sailing longest are at the bottom, so going down means going back. While the line goes down, it sometimes trembles: that's a bite, and you only catch something if you let go right at that moment. If you let go outside a bite, the line comes up empty and nothing else happens: you don't use up any of today's bottles, there's no score or streak, and you can try again whenever you like. What comes up is any bottle from that depth, chosen by the sea. Never one of yours, never one you've already passed on, and as everywhere in Open Sea, you don't choose whom to read. You treat what you catch like any other Open Sea bottle: with the quiet gestures, not a reply.

What is “Bottle in pieces”?

A game that appears on The Sand when you go into Open Sea. The sea picks a short bottle, one that resonated with many people, and leaves it with its words scattered. Put them in order and you can read the whole thing. There are no points, no counted tries, and no timer: it's a way to read slowly 🌊 If you've already put today's together and the sea has left another, you can keep going with that one. If not, it leaves a new one tomorrow.

Can one of my bottles show up on The Sand?

Yes, if it's short and resonated with a lot of people. It never shows your name or anything else about you, and it's never one from the Sea of Secrets. If you'd rather it didn't, turn it off in My Sea. And when one of your bottles has been on The Sand, we tell you, but only once its journey is over. While it's still there we say nothing, because telling you would be inviting you to watch others put it together.

Why can't I reply to the bottle on The Sand?

Because The Sand is part of Open Sea, and in Open Sea there are no replies: replying is for the bottles the current leaves on your shore. You can resonate, keep it, and read more from its sea, as with any other Open Sea bottle.

What is The Lighthouse?

A single tap, on The Sand. Each country has its own lighthouse, and every day it starts out dark. The first person from your country to stop by can light it, and it stays lit for the whole country until midnight. Anyone who comes by later sees which city the light came from (never who lit it) and which other coasts are lit today, on The Sand and on the map. You can light it too, even if it's already lit. There are no points, no streak, and no count of how many people lit it. Each night, it goes dark again on its own.

What is “Reviews of the world”?

One topic a day, and one line from you about it: coming home, a coffee you still owe someone, what makes you laugh. You can read other people's lines three at a time, with their city and country and no names, whether or not you've written yours. One a day per person, and we never say how many there are: it's not a wall with a scoreboard. Tomorrow the sea suggests another topic.

What is “Which sea did it go to?”

A game on The Sand. The sea shows you an Open Sea bottle without telling you which sea it was cast into — Life, Thoughts, Love, Memories, Dreams, or Today — and you choose. If you're right, that sea lights up. If not, it goes dark and you keep choosing, with no counted tries and no message. Bottles from the Sea of Secrets never come up. And if the bottle went to more than one sea, you find them all: when you get the first one, we tell you there's at least one more, and the bottle doesn't leave until all its seas have turned up. We never give you the list; you find them yourself. There are no points and no saved answers: it's a way to read more closely. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone. The right-answer mark is for getting it on the first try: you can keep choosing as long as you like, and the row only remembers whether your first pick was right.

What is “Which one is older?”

Two bottles reach The Sand together, and you pick the one you think has been at sea longer. If you're right, the date it set sail appears. If not, it tells you that too and shows you which one was older, without the date and without counting anything. Either way, both bottles stay until you ask for two more. They're always at least two weeks apart, so you can feel the difference and it isn't a trick. Like all the games on The Sand, there's no score or streak. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone.

What is “Where did it come from?”

A bottle whose postmark the water has washed away, and four countries below it: the real one and three others that also have bottles in the sea. If you're right, the postmark is drawn in full. Only the country is shown, never the city, not even when you get it right. And the real country doesn't reach your phone until you choose: the server decides whether you got it right. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone. The right-answer mark is for getting it on the first try: you can keep choosing as long as you like, and the row only remembers whether your first pick was right.

What is The Water's Edge?

A beach at night, on The Sand. At first you can't see anything: there's one line of text and a button to light a fire. Each time you light it or stoke it, the light grows and a little more appears — the water, the sand, a piece of driftwood, some stones, the horizon, the stars — until the sea leaves a bottle at the water's edge. When you open it, you read a public bottle from Open Sea, written by someone who doesn't know it made it that far. The fire takes a long while to be ready again, and twice The Water's Edge takes a break of a few hours. That's why you play it a little at a time, over three or four short visits. There are no points, no streak, no way to lose, and we never send you a reminder to come back. When it's over, the beach stays lit and you can come back and look at it whenever you like 🌙

Is my progress at The Water's Edge saved?

Yes, but only on your phone, not in your account. That means two things. You can close the app and come back days later to find everything as you left it. And if you clear your browser data, close your account, switch phones, or go a long time without opening the app (iPhones clean up on their own after a few weeks), the night starts over from darkness. Nothing else is lost: your bottles, your chats, and your account have nothing to do with this.

How do you play Low Tide?

It's a gentle take on Minesweeper, with a new seabed every day. • Tap a water square to probe it. If nothing's hidden there, it turns to sand, and its number tells you how many reefs are in the eight squares around it. • If you think a square hides a reef, choose Mark and tap it: a buoy marks it. • Each probe uses up a little light: that's the candle, which keeps burning down. • Hitting a reef doesn't end anything: the tide takes half of what you gathered today, and you keep going. • As you clear squares, you collect glass, cork, and paper. Tap the boat to make things: the lantern lights up nine squares without using light, the anchor saves you from the next reef, and the candle gives you more light, just for today. • If you clear the whole seabed, a sunken bottle appears for you to read: a real one, written by someone, one of the bottles in Open Sea. The seabed is the same for everyone, and you never have to guess: the numbers are always enough to know where to go next 🌊

What happens if I hit a reef in Low Tide?

Nothing ends. The reef is revealed and stays in view as rock, and you can keep probing the rest of the seabed with whatever light you have left. The only thing that happens is that the tide takes half of what you'd gathered that same day. What was already in the boat from earlier days isn't touched. And if you're carrying an anchor, the tide takes nothing: the anchor gets used up instead, which is what it's for. There's no way to lose, and no way to end up worse off than when you started.

Is what I collect in Low Tide saved?

What the boat carries — the glass, cork, paper, lanterns, and anchors — is saved in your account, so it follows you to any phone you sign in on, and it waits for you whether you come back tomorrow or in a month. If you haven't saved your account yet, the load lives only in this browser and is lost if you clear its data or switch phones. Saving your account takes a moment, and then it's safe. Today's half-cleared seabed, though, always lives on your phone, because it's just for today. And nothing else is saved: not how many days you played, not how long you took, no streak. No one is measured here.

A place to look out from, on The Sand. From the pier you can see the bottles that are setting out for Open Sea, moving slowly away toward the horizon. For each one you only see its sea and the country it's leaving from, never the city or who wrote it. When you tap it you can read the whole thing. You can resonate with it, as in Open Sea, and undo it if you change your mind. If something isn't right, you can report it: it disappears from The Pier and from Open Sea for you, and the team that looks after the sea reviews it. Your own bottles set out from there too, with a soft glow so you can recognize them. A bottle from the Sea of Secrets never shows up, and neither does one from someone who turned off The Sand in My Sea. There are no points and no counts: it's just looking at the sea for a while.

What is “Crossed Paths”?

A place on The Sand where the sea brings together two Open Sea bottles, written by people who don't know each other, that seem to be talking to each other without knowing it. You see them side by side, floating in the same sea, with their city, country, and month, never who wrote them. If something isn't right, you can report either one: if one of them is reported, the pair comes down for everyone. An AI system chooses the pairs. It never pairs bottles about an open wound, or two that together could read as mockery or as a date, and the team that looks after the sea can review them first. Some days it doesn't pair any, and that's fine. You can look back at earlier days' pairs from the same place. If one of your bottles crosses paths with another, we let you know. And if you'd rather yours stay out, turn it off in My Sea. There are no points and no counts: it's reading two bottles together, and nothing more 🌊

What does “Resonate” mean? How is it different from “Keep”?

Both put the bottle in Kept. The difference is what reaches the other side: when you resonate, the person who wrote it learns that their words resonated with someone. If they have notifications on, they get one on their phone: just one per bottle, whether ten people resonate or one. They'll never know who it was, or how many: it isn't shown to anyone and doesn't change anything in the sea. Keeping, on the other hand, is just for you and never leaves your account. In Open Sea there are no replies: that's for your shore.

I sent a message by mistake. Can I delete it?

Yes, as long as it's still the last one in the chat and you wrote it: Delete appears below it, and it asks once before doing it. It disappears for both of you, not just for you. Once the other person replies, you can't anymore. The chat has moved on, and that reply is about what you said. And it can't be undone: deleting a message isn't like deleting a bottle, which goes to Deleted and can be recovered.

Someone replied to my bottle and I don't know what to say. Do I have to write back?

No. If their reply reached you but you don't want to start a conversation, the chat has Resonate: it tells them without words. That person finds out — the next time they open the app, with no phone notification — that their words resonated with the person who wrote the bottle, and that's it: there's no number or time on it, and nothing to reply to. You can say it once per chat, and it can't be taken back. It exists because someone who replies to a stranger's bottle never used to know whether their words had reached anyone. And silence on the other side reads like being abandoned, even when it isn't. And it goes both ways: if you replied to a bottle and the person who wrote it answers you, you can also tell them it reached you without writing anything more. One each, once per chat: it's never a button on every message or a number that grows.

In Sent, it says “Your bottle struck a chord with someone.” What does that mean?

That someone resonated with it: they read it and it reached them. We used to say only “resonated with someone,” and now we tell it as what it is, a moment, with the time in words and in your own time zone, never with a date. It doesn't say who or how many, and it never will: if ten people resonate with the same bottle, the line is the same. And it doesn't include a place, because a place tied to one specific gesture really would say who.

Why did a bottle from a year ago come back to me?

That's the tide that remembers. If a bottle resonated with you about a year ago, the sea brings it back to you once, with a gold line that explains why. There's no phone notification and no badge: if you don't open the app during those days, the memory passes by, the way real tides do.

Yes, once per bottle. If the other person writes back, a private chat opens, and inside it you take turns: after you send a message, you wait for the other person to answer. It's not a chat for typing back and forth. It's a letter and its reply, at the pace of a letter. And one bottle opens up to five chats: once it's full, it keeps sailing and can still be read, but no one can reply to it.

Are there likes or followers?

No. There are no metrics here, and that's on purpose: when no one is counting, people write what they really feel.

Why does the water in Open Sea change color?

It's the sea's weather: the water where the bottles float follows the time on your clock. Dawn, day, dusk, and night move along with you, and at night the moon comes out. The rest of the app stays in its usual green. It's only the water, and it doesn't change how anything works or what you see.

How long does a bottle last?

You choose when you cast it, by picking its current: Breeze floats for 90 days, Current for 60, and Tide for 30. When its days run out, it sinks.

How many bottles can I cast a day?

A few. You'll always see the exact number on the writing screen, above the button: it tells you how many you have left today. The server enforces the limit, and it resets at midnight on YOUR clock, not someone else's. It's there so the sea stays a place for calm reading, not for whoever shouts the loudest.

How many seas can I choose?

One to three. Your bottle will sail every sea you choose and reach the people exploring them.

A line for the day, to get you started when you don't know what to write. You can flip through them or ignore them; you never have to write about them.

What does the World tab show?

Two things, and both are real. The two numbers about the sea, “Words lost at sea” and “Countries writing,” count the whole sea, in every language, and never you or anyone in particular. When there's nothing to tell, they don't show up. And the map: each green dot is a bottle that reached real hands, placed in the city where it was found, and the lines are journeys that already happened. The gold dot is you, in the city on your postmark. You can drag the map to explore it. What you won't find is a counter for anything of yours: the map tells the story of the sea, not of people.

Can I search Open Sea?

Yes, by words, within the sea you're exploring. You can also sort what the tide brings in: Random, Recent, or Your region (bottles from your country). Never by person: here, you don't choose who to read.

How will I know someone replied?

With a notification on your phone and, always, right here in the app: the bottle shows up marked in Sent. On iPhone, notifications only work if you first add Seabottles to your Home Screen (Safari → Share → “Add to Home Screen”), and even then they're less reliable than in an app from the App Store.

We don't want them, and we fight them. When you create an account, an invisible check stops automated programs. The server enforces the daily bottle limit. Everything you cast goes through a filter before it sets sail. And the same bottle can't be cast twice: we compare the text without capital letters, accents, or punctuation, so disguising it doesn't work. If something automated still gets in, we remove it and suspend the account.

Can I cast song lyrics or a passage from a book?

Not as if it were yours. Seabottles is for writing in your own words: if you copy lyrics, a poem, or a passage from a book and cast it as your own, we remove it. If you recognize someone else's writing in a bottle, report it with the reason “Written by someone else.” And if you're the author or the rights holder, write to us at hola@seabottles.org saying which work it is and where you saw it. We'll remove it and tell the person who cast it why, and they can appeal like any other removal.

No. It's a place to write and be read, without expecting anything in return.

Can I decorate my bottle?

Yes. While you write it, you can choose the paper, ink, label, twine, and stamp (or tap “Let the sea choose”), and turn the origin postmark (your city and the date) on or off. It's purely for looks. It doesn't change how many people it reaches or how long it floats, and no one sees it any differently before opening it: everything is revealed only when it's uncorked.

Is there a minimum age?

Yes. Seabottles is a sea for adults, only for people 18 and over. Here you write with no name and from the heart, and that takes maturity.

How do I share a bottle?

With the copy icon on its card: it copies the text to your clipboard with a signature from the sea, ready to paste wherever you like. Nothing about the person who wrote it is ever copied. (In Open Sea you also have the Share button.)

How Seabottles works

And why there's no point in lying here

Seabottles is a place to say what you really feel and have someone, somewhere, read it. It works like a message in a bottle: you write a short note and let it go, and you don't choose who gets it. The current does. Whoever opens it can write back to you.

When no one is counting how many people read you, writing stops being a performance. That's why there are no profiles, no photos, no followers, and no likes. They aren't missing features. Leaving them out is what makes room for what you really feel.

Three steps

1. WriteBetween 15 and 800 characters. Long enough to be worth opening, short enough to stay a note instead of an endless letter.
2. Cast itChoose one to three seas and a current. Then let it go. It isn't yours anymore: it belongs to the sea.
3. Someone repliesIt might take hours or days. It might never happen. When it does, it's from someone who doesn't know you and chose to write back anyway.

The seas: where your bottle sails

The seas are topics. You choose one to three, and your bottle reaches the people exploring those seas. Every bottle you receive shows which sea it came from.

LifeWhat you're going through.
LoveWhat you feel and don't say.
SecretsWhat you've never told anyone.
MemoriesWhat's in the past and still with you.
DreamsWhat hasn't happened yet.
ThoughtsWhat crossed your mind today.
TodayWhat's happening out in the world.

The currents: how long it floats

When you cast it, you choose which current carries it. The current decides how many days it keeps traveling before it sinks. A bottle that floats longer reaches more hands; one with fewer days is gone sooner.

BreezeFloats for 90 days.
CurrentFloats for 60 days.
TideFloats for 30 days.

When its days run out, the bottle sinks. It isn't deleted: it stays with you in Sunk, but it stops traveling.

Who reads it, and why you can't choose

While it's afloat, the sea offers it to a handful of people at a time. If no one opens it, the sea gives it back to the current so others can find it. You don't choose who gets it. The current does.

All anyone sees of you is your city and country. Never your name — there's no name to show.

When someone replies

Whoever receives your bottle can reply to it just once. If you answer that reply, a private chat opens between the two of you. There you take turns, like a letter and its reply, until one of you closes it. One bottle can open up to five chats.

That one-reply limit is there for a reason: it makes the first one count. It isn't a chat where you throw anything out there to see what sticks.

Open Sea: reading, not replying

Open Sea is where everyone's bottles drift. There you can read them, but you can't reply — you can only reply to the ones the current leaves on your shore. When you open a bottle in Open Sea, you can resonate with it (“this one reached me”: anonymous, no counters), keep it, share just its text, or pass it on: let it go back to the current so it keeps traveling.

Decorating your bottle

You can choose the paper, the ink, the label, the twine, and the stamp — or tap “Let the sea choose.” You can also turn on the origin postmark, which shows your city and the date. It's purely for looks: it doesn't change how many people it reaches or how long it floats, and no one sees it any differently before opening it. Everything is revealed when it's uncorked.

The rules

Only for adults 18 and over.
There's a daily limit on bottles, and the server enforces it.
Everything you cast goes through a filter before it sets sail.
The same bottle can't be cast twice: the text is compared ignoring capital letters, accents, and punctuation, so dressing it up differently won't work.
Anyone can report content, with or without an account.
When something is removed, we say why, and you can appeal for free. Appeals are decided by a person. Nothing is ever removed in silence.

Frequently asked questions

The same ones you'll find in the app's Help, word for word.

The basics

Am I anonymous?: Yes. Only your city and country are shown, never your name.
Can I install Seabottles as an app?: Yes, and you don't need an app store: you install it right from your browser. It sits on your home screen like any other app and opens full screen. On iPhone and iPad, in Safari: tap Share — the square with the arrow pointing up — and choose “Add to Home Screen.” On Android, in Chrome: open the three-dot menu ⋮ and choose “Install app” (or “Add to Home screen”). Often the browser offers it on its own. On a computer, in Chrome or Edge: an install icon appears at the right end of the address bar. When your browser allows it, there's also an “Install the app” shortcut at the top of this Help page and in My Sea. It takes up almost no space and doesn't create a second account — it's the same one, with the same bottles and the same chats — and it works even when you lose signal. On iPhone, installing it is also the only way notifications can reach you.
When I installed it, Google showed me a warning that says “Unsafe app blocked.” Is something wrong?: Don't worry: that warning says nothing bad about Seabottles or your data. When you install from Chrome, Google builds a small package that wraps the page to give it its own icon and window. Play Protect — Google's security check — sometimes objects to the way that package is built. The problem is in Google's packaging, not in the app, which is why it shows up on some phones and not on others. You have two options: tap More details and then Install anyway, or — better — update Chrome from the Play Store and try again. An up-to-date Chrome asks for a new package, and the warning won't appear. In the meantime, you're not missing anything: Seabottles works just the same in your browser, with the same account. The warning only shows up when you install.
How is Seabottles kept afloat? Can I help?: No ads, no selling your data, no measuring you. Keeping Seabottles afloat costs money, and for now the person who looks after it pays for it. If something you found here helped you, you can read how the sea stays afloat at seabottles.org/en/keep-the-sea-afloat. For now, voluntary contributions are only available in Argentina. They get you nothing in return and change nothing: not who receives your bottles, not how far they go, not the luck of the draw. There are no badges and no lists of who contributes. And if you can't or don't want to, that's fine. The best way to keep the sea afloat is still to write and reply.
Who reads my bottle?: People chosen at random, anywhere in the world, who read your language. While it's afloat, the sea offers it to a handful of people at a time. If nobody opens it, the sea gives it back to the current so others can find it. The same goes for the ones that reach your shore: if you don't open one within a few days, the tide carries it off and it travels on toward another shore. You don't choose who reads it. The current does.
What language do the bottles come in?: Yours. Bottles only travel between people who use the same language: you get the ones written in your account's language, and yours reach people who read it. Open Sea shows only bottles in your language, too. You choose it the first time you open Seabottles, and you can change it anytime under Save your account → Language.
Are there likes or followers?: No. There are no metrics here, and that's on purpose: when no one is counting, people write what they really feel.
Is it a dating app?: No. It's a place to write and be read, without expecting anything in return.
Is there a minimum age?: Yes. Seabottles is a sea for adults, only for people 18 and over. Here you write with no name and from the heart, and that takes maturity.

Write and cast

What are the seas?: Topics. Your bottle sails the seas you choose (Life, Love, Secrets…) and reaches the people exploring those seas. Every bottle you receive shows which sea it came from.
How long does a bottle last?: You choose when you cast it, by picking its current: Breeze floats for 90 days, Current for 60, and Tide for 30. When its days run out, it sinks.
How many bottles can I cast a day?: A few. You'll always see the exact number on the writing screen, above the button: it tells you how many you have left today. The server enforces the limit, and it resets at midnight on YOUR clock, not someone else's. It's there so the sea stays a place for calm reading, not for whoever shouts the loudest.
How many seas can I choose?: One to three. Your bottle will sail every sea you choose and reach the people exploring them.
What's a spark?: A line for the day, to get you started when you don't know what to write. You can flip through them or ignore them; you never have to write about them.
Can I decorate my bottle?: Yes. While you write it, you can choose the paper, ink, label, twine, and stamp (or tap “Let the sea choose”), and turn the origin postmark (your city and the date) on or off. It's purely for looks. It doesn't change how many people it reaches or how long it floats, and no one sees it any differently before opening it: everything is revealed only when it's uncorked.
How long can a bottle be?: Between 15 and 800 characters. The minimum is so it's worth opening; the maximum is so it stays a note and not an endless letter. The sea is for short, calm reading. The counter in the writing box warns you, even if you paste in something longer.
Can I send a bottle to the future?: Yes. While you write it, you can choose “To the future”: instead of setting sail today, your bottle waits a whole year and only then goes out to sea. You can send it to a stranger (chance chooses, as always) or to yourself, and then it reaches you a year from now. While it waits, it doesn't exist for anyone: it's not in Open Sea, it isn't handed out, and it doesn't sink. In Sent, you'll see it with its countdown.
What are a bottle's treasures?: Small objects you can leave inside before you cast it: a seashell, a starfish, a lantern. Up to three. No one sees them until someone opens the bottle, and then they fall at the foot of the letter. They say nothing about you: they're a gesture, like choosing the paper.
What's that line about the pace of the sea?: A sentence that sometimes appears while you write, so you know what the sea is like right now: it says how long bottles have been taking lately to reach someone's hands. It comes from the whole sea, never from your bottles, and it has no numbers or percentages. And it isn't always there: if the sea is slow, or if there are too few bottles to say it honestly, the line doesn't appear. Silence is better than a weak promise. It isn't a forecast for your bottle: the current and chance are still in charge.

Replies and chats

I sent a message by mistake. Can I delete it?: Yes, as long as it's still the last one in the chat and you wrote it: Delete appears below it, and it asks once before doing it. It disappears for both of you, not just for you. Once the other person replies, you can't anymore. The chat has moved on, and that reply is about what you said. And it can't be undone: deleting a message isn't like deleting a bottle, which goes to Deleted and can be recovered.
Someone replied to my bottle and I don't know what to say. Do I have to write back?: No. If their reply reached you but you don't want to start a conversation, the chat has Resonate: it tells them without words. That person finds out — the next time they open the app, with no phone notification — that their words resonated with the person who wrote the bottle, and that's it: there's no number or time on it, and nothing to reply to. You can say it once per chat, and it can't be taken back. It exists because someone who replies to a stranger's bottle never used to know whether their words had reached anyone. And silence on the other side reads like being abandoned, even when it isn't. And it goes both ways: if you replied to a bottle and the person who wrote it answers you, you can also tell them it reached you without writing anything more. One each, once per chat: it's never a button on every message or a number that grows.
Can I reply?: Yes, once per bottle. If the other person writes back, a private chat opens, and inside it you take turns: after you send a message, you wait for the other person to answer. It's not a chat for typing back and forth. It's a letter and its reply, at the pace of a letter. And one bottle opens up to five chats: once it's full, it keeps sailing and can still be read, but no one can reply to it.
How will I know someone replied?: With a notification on your phone and, always, right here in the app: the bottle shows up marked in Sent. On iPhone, notifications only work if you first add Seabottles to your Home Screen (Safari → Share → “Add to Home Screen”), and even then they're less reliable than in an app from the App Store.
How do I share a bottle?: With the copy icon on its card: it copies the text to your clipboard with a signature from the sea, ready to paste wherever you like. Nothing about the person who wrote it is ever copied. (In Open Sea you also have the Share button.)
What does “adrift” mean?: That your bottle is traveling and no one has replied to it yet. Every bottle always shows where it stands: adrift, got a reply, no reply yet, you replied, sunk, in Deleted, or removed by moderation.
How long can a reply or a chat message be?: Up to 500 characters, a little more than half of what fits in a bottle. A bottle shows its counter while you write; a reply and a chat message don't, so if you go over, the text is cut off when you send it. The limit is there for the same reason as the bottle's: the sea is for short, calm reading.

Open Sea and World

What is Open Sea?: The open water where every bottle in your language floats. You can read them all, but you can only reply to the ones the current leaves on your shore. You go in through a sea (Life, Love, Secrets…) and the tide brings you bottles a handful at a time, never all at once. You can see them floating or in a grid, have the current bring in new ones, look at recent ones or ones from your region, and search by keyword.
What can I do when I open a bottle in Open Sea?: Quiet gestures. Resonate (“this one reached me”: anonymous, no counters; it goes into Kept, and the person who wrote it only gets a warm notification, with no name or number), Keep, Share (text and link, no author), and Pass it on, which lets it keep going without you. No comments, no rankings, no “most popular.”
What is fishing for a bottle?: Another way to find one, in Open Sea. You hold your finger on the water and the line goes down: the longer you wait, the deeper it goes. And depth is time. The newly cast bottles float near the top, and the ones that have been sailing longest are at the bottom, so going down means going back. While the line goes down, it sometimes trembles: that's a bite, and you only catch something if you let go right at that moment. If you let go outside a bite, the line comes up empty and nothing else happens: you don't use up any of today's bottles, there's no score or streak, and you can try again whenever you like. What comes up is any bottle from that depth, chosen by the sea. Never one of yours, never one you've already passed on, and as everywhere in Open Sea, you don't choose whom to read. You treat what you catch like any other Open Sea bottle: with the quiet gestures, not a reply.
What is “Bottle in pieces”?: A game that appears on The Sand when you go into Open Sea. The sea picks a short bottle, one that resonated with many people, and leaves it with its words scattered. Put them in order and you can read the whole thing. There are no points, no counted tries, and no timer: it's a way to read slowly 🌊 If you've already put today's together and the sea has left another, you can keep going with that one. If not, it leaves a new one tomorrow.
Can one of my bottles show up on The Sand?: Yes, if it's short and resonated with a lot of people. It never shows your name or anything else about you, and it's never one from the Sea of Secrets. If you'd rather it didn't, turn it off in My Sea. And when one of your bottles has been on The Sand, we tell you, but only once its journey is over. While it's still there we say nothing, because telling you would be inviting you to watch others put it together.
Why can't I reply to the bottle on The Sand?: Because The Sand is part of Open Sea, and in Open Sea there are no replies: replying is for the bottles the current leaves on your shore. You can resonate, keep it, and read more from its sea, as with any other Open Sea bottle.
What is The Lighthouse?: A single tap, on The Sand. Each country has its own lighthouse, and every day it starts out dark. The first person from your country to stop by can light it, and it stays lit for the whole country until midnight. Anyone who comes by later sees which city the light came from (never who lit it) and which other coasts are lit today, on The Sand and on the map. You can light it too, even if it's already lit. There are no points, no streak, and no count of how many people lit it. Each night, it goes dark again on its own.
What is “Reviews of the world”?: One topic a day, and one line from you about it: coming home, a coffee you still owe someone, what makes you laugh. You can read other people's lines three at a time, with their city and country and no names, whether or not you've written yours. One a day per person, and we never say how many there are: it's not a wall with a scoreboard. Tomorrow the sea suggests another topic.
What is “Which sea did it go to?”: A game on The Sand. The sea shows you an Open Sea bottle without telling you which sea it was cast into — Life, Thoughts, Love, Memories, Dreams, or Today — and you choose. If you're right, that sea lights up. If not, it goes dark and you keep choosing, with no counted tries and no message. Bottles from the Sea of Secrets never come up. And if the bottle went to more than one sea, you find them all: when you get the first one, we tell you there's at least one more, and the bottle doesn't leave until all its seas have turned up. We never give you the list; you find them yourself. There are no points and no saved answers: it's a way to read more closely. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone. The right-answer mark is for getting it on the first try: you can keep choosing as long as you like, and the row only remembers whether your first pick was right.
What is “Which one is older?”: Two bottles reach The Sand together, and you pick the one you think has been at sea longer. If you're right, the date it set sail appears. If not, it tells you that too and shows you which one was older, without the date and without counting anything. Either way, both bottles stay until you ask for two more. They're always at least two weeks apart, so you can feel the difference and it isn't a trick. Like all the games on The Sand, there's no score or streak. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone.
What is “Where did it come from?”: A bottle whose postmark the water has washed away, and four countries below it: the real one and three others that also have bottles in the sea. If you're right, the postmark is drawn in full. Only the country is shown, never the city, not even when you get it right. And the real country doesn't reach your phone until you choose: the server decides whether you got it right. You play in rounds: at the top there's a row of marks that fills up — 🐳 when you're right, 🫧 when you're not — and when it's full, the sea opens a whole bottle for you to read. That bottle always comes, whether you got them all right or none. And the tally isn't saved anywhere: leave the game and the row starts over, with no streak, no total, and no comparison with anyone. The right-answer mark is for getting it on the first try: you can keep choosing as long as you like, and the row only remembers whether your first pick was right.
What is The Water's Edge?: A beach at night, on The Sand. At first you can't see anything: there's one line of text and a button to light a fire. Each time you light it or stoke it, the light grows and a little more appears — the water, the sand, a piece of driftwood, some stones, the horizon, the stars — until the sea leaves a bottle at the water's edge. When you open it, you read a public bottle from Open Sea, written by someone who doesn't know it made it that far. The fire takes a long while to be ready again, and twice The Water's Edge takes a break of a few hours. That's why you play it a little at a time, over three or four short visits. There are no points, no streak, no way to lose, and we never send you a reminder to come back. When it's over, the beach stays lit and you can come back and look at it whenever you like 🌙
Is my progress at The Water's Edge saved?: Yes, but only on your phone, not in your account. That means two things. You can close the app and come back days later to find everything as you left it. And if you clear your browser data, close your account, switch phones, or go a long time without opening the app (iPhones clean up on their own after a few weeks), the night starts over from darkness. Nothing else is lost: your bottles, your chats, and your account have nothing to do with this.
How do you play Low Tide?: It's a gentle take on Minesweeper, with a new seabed every day. • Tap a water square to probe it. If nothing's hidden there, it turns to sand, and its number tells you how many reefs are in the eight squares around it. • If you think a square hides a reef, choose Mark and tap it: a buoy marks it. • Each probe uses up a little light: that's the candle, which keeps burning down. • Hitting a reef doesn't end anything: the tide takes half of what you gathered today, and you keep going. • As you clear squares, you collect glass, cork, and paper. Tap the boat to make things: the lantern lights up nine squares without using light, the anchor saves you from the next reef, and the candle gives you more light, just for today. • If you clear the whole seabed, a sunken bottle appears for you to read: a real one, written by someone, one of the bottles in Open Sea. The seabed is the same for everyone, and you never have to guess: the numbers are always enough to know where to go next 🌊
What happens if I hit a reef in Low Tide?: Nothing ends. The reef is revealed and stays in view as rock, and you can keep probing the rest of the seabed with whatever light you have left. The only thing that happens is that the tide takes half of what you'd gathered that same day. What was already in the boat from earlier days isn't touched. And if you're carrying an anchor, the tide takes nothing: the anchor gets used up instead, which is what it's for. There's no way to lose, and no way to end up worse off than when you started.
Is what I collect in Low Tide saved?: What the boat carries — the glass, cork, paper, lanterns, and anchors — is saved in your account, so it follows you to any phone you sign in on, and it waits for you whether you come back tomorrow or in a month. If you haven't saved your account yet, the load lives only in this browser and is lost if you clear its data or switch phones. Saving your account takes a moment, and then it's safe. Today's half-cleared seabed, though, always lives on your phone, because it's just for today. And nothing else is saved: not how many days you played, not how long you took, no streak. No one is measured here.
What is The Pier?: A place to look out from, on The Sand. From the pier you can see the bottles that are setting out for Open Sea, moving slowly away toward the horizon. For each one you only see its sea and the country it's leaving from, never the city or who wrote it. When you tap it you can read the whole thing. You can resonate with it, as in Open Sea, and undo it if you change your mind. If something isn't right, you can report it: it disappears from The Pier and from Open Sea for you, and the team that looks after the sea reviews it. Your own bottles set out from there too, with a soft glow so you can recognize them. A bottle from the Sea of Secrets never shows up, and neither does one from someone who turned off The Sand in My Sea. There are no points and no counts: it's just looking at the sea for a while.
What is “Crossed Paths”?: A place on The Sand where the sea brings together two Open Sea bottles, written by people who don't know each other, that seem to be talking to each other without knowing it. You see them side by side, floating in the same sea, with their city, country, and month, never who wrote them. If something isn't right, you can report either one: if one of them is reported, the pair comes down for everyone. An AI system chooses the pairs. It never pairs bottles about an open wound, or two that together could read as mockery or as a date, and the team that looks after the sea can review them first. Some days it doesn't pair any, and that's fine. You can look back at earlier days' pairs from the same place. If one of your bottles crosses paths with another, we let you know. And if you'd rather yours stay out, turn it off in My Sea. There are no points and no counts: it's reading two bottles together, and nothing more 🌊
Why does the water in Open Sea change color?: It's the sea's weather: the water where the bottles float follows the time on your clock. Dawn, day, dusk, and night move along with you, and at night the moon comes out. The rest of the app stays in its usual green. It's only the water, and it doesn't change how anything works or what you see.
What does the World tab show?: Two things, and both are real. The two numbers about the sea, “Words lost at sea” and “Countries writing,” count the whole sea, in every language, and never you or anyone in particular. When there's nothing to tell, they don't show up. And the map: each green dot is a bottle that reached real hands, placed in the city where it was found, and the lines are journeys that already happened. The gold dot is you, in the city on your postmark. You can drag the map to explore it. What you won't find is a counter for anything of yours: the map tells the story of the sea, not of people.
Can I search Open Sea?: Yes, by words, within the sea you're exploring. You can also sort what the tide brings in: Random, Recent, or Your region (bottles from your country). Never by person: here, you don't choose who to read.
What does “pass it on” mean?: It means letting the bottle go on without you: it leaves your Open Sea and won't be offered to you again, so the current can carry it to other people. It isn't replying or keeping, and it isn't reporting: the sea doesn't count how many times a bottle was passed on, and its author never finds out.
Could my bottle show up on Seabottles' social media?: It could, if it's from Open Sea. Open Sea bottles are public: every now and then we choose one and share it on our channels, always without a name and exactly as it reached the sea. Same text, same decoration, nothing about you. Bottles from your shore, chats and replies never leave: those are private and stay that way. Your words are still yours; we can only show them. And if you delete the bottle or close your account, we stop using it.

When you open a bottle

What does “Resonate” mean? How is it different from “Keep”?: Both put the bottle in Kept. The difference is what reaches the other side: when you resonate, the person who wrote it learns that their words resonated with someone. If they have notifications on, they get one on their phone: just one per bottle, whether ten people resonate or one. They'll never know who it was, or how many: it isn't shown to anyone and doesn't change anything in the sea. Keeping, on the other hand, is just for you and never leaves your account. In Open Sea there are no replies: that's for your shore.
In Sent, it says “Your bottle struck a chord with someone.” What does that mean?: That someone resonated with it: they read it and it reached them. We used to say only “resonated with someone,” and now we tell it as what it is, a moment, with the time in words and in your own time zone, never with a date. It doesn't say who or how many, and it never will: if ten people resonate with the same bottle, the line is the same. And it doesn't include a place, because a place tied to one specific gesture really would say who.
Why did a bottle from a year ago come back to me?: That's the tide that remembers. If a bottle resonated with you about a year ago, the sea brings it back to you once, with a gold line that explains why. There's no phone notification and no badge: if you don't open the app during those days, the memory passes by, the way real tides do.
What do I see when I open a bottle full size?: The bottle with its decoration and the whole letter, up close: a moment to read. Below it you have Share, which copies the text and the link without saying who wrote it, and, if it's yours and someone replied, the way into each chat. Keeping, replying and reporting are done from its card. Share doesn't appear in the preview of a bottle you're still writing, or on bottles that are no longer afloat.

My Sea

Can I change my city and country?: Yes, and it's worth checking. When you first open the app, it suggests a city based on your device's time zone. It never asks for your location, and it never looks at it. If it got it right, leave it. If not, fix it right there, or later from My Sea. It's what appears on the postmark of your bottles, so it's the only thing other people will know about where you are. You can leave the city blank and show just the country.
What happens if I switch phones or clear my browser?: Your account lives in this browser. If you clear it or switch phones, the account is lost: your bottles stay in the sea, but they're no longer yours, and you won't see their replies again. To keep that from happening, you can link it to Google in My Sea → Save your account. It's not required, and no one is rushing you. But it's the only thing that ties your sea to you instead of to the browser.
What is a passkey, and why doesn't it always show up?: It lets you sign in with your fingerprint, your face, or your phone's PIN, with no password. The row shows up after you've saved your account with Google: the account first needs something to anchor to, and only then can a passkey be added. The passkey lives on that phone, so if you switch phones or lose it, Google is how you get back in.
Can I take my data with me or close my account?: Both, from My Sea. Get a copy of my data downloads a file with everything that's yours and keeps a record of the request. If you need to ask by email, we reply within 30 days at most. Close my account and delete my data asks you to confirm in two steps, and it really does delete everything: your bottles, your chats, and your account. The only thing we keep is evidence from serious cases that the law requires us to hold on to, and the legal pages explain that.
What are the sea stamps?: One stamp for each country that replied to one of your bottles. They live in My Sea, they're just for you, and there's no total and no comparing with anyone.
Can I take a break without losing anything?: Yes. It's called “The sea will wait for me,” and it's in My Sea. When you turn it on, new bottles stop reaching you until you come back. Nothing is deleted: your bottles keep floating, your chats are still there and so are your kept bottles. It's a pause, not a goodbye, and you can turn it off with one tap whenever you want.
Can I let go of the welcome bottle?: Yes, in two ways. If you want to keep it as a memento, tap “Thanks, got it” and it moves to Kept; you can delete it from there whenever you like. And if you'd rather nothing stays, its own card has a trash can and it's gone right away. The bottle the sea left you doesn't sink and can't be replied to, so you lose nothing either way.
What does “Peek into its sea” show?: While a bottle of yours is still sailing, you can peek into its sea: its sky, tonight's moon, the next tide, and how many days it's been out. It only appears on your bottles that are still adrift. A sunk one already has its farewell, and a removed one doesn't sail. It doesn't say where it is: the sea doesn't give addresses. And if you keep watching, things happen: fish swim by, a ship crosses the horizon, something passes through the sky, and every so often there's a shooting star. There's nothing to tap; it's just the sea.
What happens when my bottle's journey ends?: The sea writes you a farewell. When a bottle of yours sinks (when its current's days run out), or when you let it go after at least a week afloat, a card appears in Sent that tells the story of its journey: how many days it sailed, how many hands it passed through and, if it passed through three or more people who had said where they're from, which shores it touched. It also says whether someone opened it, whether it resonated with someone and whether someone replied. Always yes or no, never how many. If no one got to open it, the farewell says so plainly. It's written once and never recalculated: it's a moment that has passed. A bottle removed by moderation has no farewell, and one you restore from Deleted loses its farewell: if it goes back to sea, its journey isn't over. And if you change your mind, you can cast it again from Sunk: it goes back to sea with the same current and uses one of your casts for the day.

Safety

If I save my account with Google, does it stop being anonymous?: No. Google is only used to recognize you when you come back. Your name and email are never shown to anyone and never travel with any bottle. Your bottles are signed the same as always: “Someone from your city”. It's the same account as before, with the same bottles and the same chats. No new one is created.
Could there be bots?: We don't want them, and we fight them. When you create an account, an invisible check stops automated programs. The server enforces the daily bottle limit. Everything you cast goes through a filter before it sets sail. And the same bottle can't be cast twice: we compare the text without capital letters, accents, or punctuation, so disguising it doesn't work. If something automated still gets in, we remove it and suspend the account.
Can I cast song lyrics or a passage from a book?: Not as if it were yours. Seabottles is for writing in your own words: if you copy lyrics, a poem, or a passage from a book and cast it as your own, we remove it. If you recognize someone else's writing in a bottle, report it with the reason “Written by someone else.” And if you're the author or the rights holder, write to us at hola@seabottles.org saying which work it is and where you saw it. We'll remove it and tell the person who cast it why, and they can appeal like any other removal.
Can I block someone?: Yes, inside the chat: in the three-dot menu you'll find Block chat. From then on, no more messages from that person reach you in that chat, and they can't write to you either. You can undo it whenever you want from the same place, with Unblock: it doesn't have to be forever. The other person isn't told that you blocked them, and nothing changes for your bottles or your account. And if what happened wasn't okay, that same menu has Report, which is anonymous and reviewed by a person.
How do I contact Seabottles?: The easiest way is the Contact screen: it's in the footer of the site, it says “Write to us,” and you don't need an account. You choose what it's about (help with the app, an accessibility barrier, report content, I think there's a minor here, privacy and my data, or something else) and write. If you leave an email, we'll reply there; if not, we still read it. If you'd rather use regular email, hola@seabottles.org works for all of the same things: put the reason in the subject line and it'll reach the right person. And to report a specific bottle, the quickest way is still the report triangle inside the app.
What happens if something of mine is removed?: We tell you on the bottle itself (“The sea gave it back”), with the reason and an “Appeal this decision — free” button. Your appeal stays “under review” until a person decides on it. If we agree with you, the bottle goes back to sea; if not, you'll see “Appeal reviewed · the decision stands.” If it affects your account, you'll see the notice and the same button in My Sea. Nothing is ever removed in silence.

Looking for the why more than the rules? It's in What is Seabottles.

Open Seabottles and cast a bottle →