Anonymous text chat with strangers

1. Pick a nickname; add up to five interest tags if you want to be matched on them.
2. Tick 18+ and tap Start. You join a queue, not a list: nobody browses you.
3. For the first 20 seconds the matcher looks for someone who picked one of your tags; after that, the next person waiting.
4. You connect. If you share a tag, one line at the top says so. Type.
5. Tap Next for the next person or Leave to stop. Every match is a new page.

Matching is a queue with two biases. The first is interest tags: if you add tags like music, football or exams, the matcher prefers someone who picked at least one of the same tags. The second is the country filter, a Premium option that narrows the pool to a country you choose. Neither is a hard wall. If nobody with your tags is waiting after 20 seconds, you are matched with the next person regardless, because a conversation with a stranger beats a spinner.

Omegle's text mode was the useful half of that site: type an interest, meet a stranger who typed the same one, talk, press Esc, next. It needed no account and it worked from a library or a bus. When Omegle closed in November 2023, almost everything that replaced it copied the video half instead.

HearMe keeps the text loop and drops what came with it. There is no camera anywhere on the site, not even a toggle. Every message passes an under-18 safety check and rate limits, a report goes to a person with the recent messages attached, and bans hold by account, device and network rather than by nickname. If you are here from a specific site, the Omegle alternative page compares them feature by feature.

The other person sees your nickname, your country's flag, and one line naming any interest you both picked; if you signed in and chose an avatar, that too. That is all. There is no profile card to inspect before you speak, no age, no location beyond the flag, and nothing that links this chat to any other chat you have had here.

There is no login screen between you and a conversation. When you open /chat, HearMe drops a guest session cookie on your browser. That cookie does one thing: it gives you a stable nickname so the same person sees the same name if you meet twice. It does not hold a name, an email, or anything you typed. There is no daily limit for guests; the free account exists so people can add friends and keep a DM thread open with someone they liked, never to unlock chatting.

Ending the chat is one tap on Leave. Moving on is one tap on Next. When either of you leaves, the page changes, the queue takes over, and the messages you exchanged are not shown to anyone again. They are held for 24 hours only in case one of you reports the other, then deleted.

HearMe runs in the browser on Android and iPhone with nothing to install; if you use it often, 'Add to home screen' puts it next to your apps. The screen is a single column, the text box stays above the keyboard, and a text chat uses almost no mobile data, which is the point of text over video for a lot of people.

Many of the people here are in India, and Hindi and English both work; the chat with strangers in India page covers the details and voice chat with strangers in India is the same idea by phone call. Two things are deliberately not here: a phone-number gate and a 'verify you are human' video selfie. HearMe's answer to bots is moderation and bans by device, not by making you identify yourself.

• Open with something specific. 'What are you listening to right now' gets a better answer than 'hi'. The shared-interest line gives you a topic; use it.
• Ask a second question. Most text chats die after one exchange because neither person follows up. The person who asks the follow-up question runs the conversation.
• Short messages, sent often, beat long ones. A wall of text on a phone reads as a monologue.
• Say when you are leaving. 'I have to go, this was good' takes two seconds and is the difference between a chat that ended and a chat that was abandoned.
• If it is going well, add them. Registered users can send a friend request; if both accept, you get a DM thread with the same person, and the conversation does not have to end with the match.

Text is quieter, slower and more private. You can do it anywhere, you can think before you answer, and the other person gets nothing but words. Voice is faster and warmer: you hear tone, you laugh at the same moment, and ten minutes of voice covers what an hour of typing would. It also shares your voice, which for some people is exactly the thing they do not want to give a stranger.

A text chat can become a call with the same person: tap the phone icon in the chat header, and if the other person accepts, you both move to a private voice call together, no re-matching. They can say not now, and you can ask at most twice in one chat. The reverse works too: a voice call has a whisper box for sending a short line of text that disappears after ten seconds, for the name of a song or a handle you would rather not say out loud.

Every chat has Report and Block in the header. Report sends the last messages to the review queue with the reason you picked, where a person reads them. Block, for signed-in accounts, ends the chat and stops you being matched with that person again; bans hold by account, device and network, not just by nickname.

Reports are read by a person, whatever language the chat was in. Repeat offenders are banned by account, device fingerprint and IP range. HearMe is for adults; messages that suggest an under-18 user are blocked and the account is warned, then banned.

The rule that matters most is yours to keep: do not share your name, school, workplace, or socials in the first few minutes. Anonymous text chat is safe precisely because you decide what to reveal, and when.

Most of what replaced Omegle's text mode is either a video site with a text tab bolted on or a text site with no moderation and no way to keep a good conversation. HearMe is built the other way round. Text is the first-class mode, every message passes an under-18 safety check and rate limits, every report is read by a person, and a conversation you liked can continue as a DM without either of you giving up anonymity.

It is also not only 1:1. When the queue is quiet, the request board lets you post what you want to talk about so someone can answer it, and the General chat room is always open.