In the app, on any conversation: open it, tap the menu in the top right, and choose Block or Report. Blocking is instant. Reporting sends the conversation to a moderator.
On any post in For You: tap Safety on the card. The same two choices, without having to open a conversation with somebody first.
Block
Blocking ends a conversation for good. The sender cannot write to you again, and they are not told that they were blocked — they simply find that nothing arrives. You do not need to know who somebody is to block them, which is the point: the mask does not protect them from this.
Report
Reporting sends that one conversation to a moderator, with the reason you give. We look at every report. The outcomes are a suspension with an end date, a permanent ban, or a decision that there was nothing in it.
A moderator sees the messages and nothing else — not the sender's account, not their username, not their email. An administrator can ask to know who it was, and that asking is recorded permanently against their own name. We do it when the decision genuinely needs it: a pattern running across several accounts, or a threat serious enough that somebody outside OTR may need to know.
The For You feed
Nothing appears in the feed until a moderator has read it. Every post is written into a queue and stays there until somebody approves it — there is no window in which an unread post is public. Reporting one puts it straight back into that queue, so it is down while the report is looked at rather than after.
Blocking from a post is about the person, not a conversation: you may never have spoken. You stop seeing anything they write, in the feed and everywhere else, and they are not told.
Replies to a post arrive as an ordinary masked conversation, quoting what they answer — so everything on this page applies to them too.
Meeting strangers
The pool is off until you turn it on, in You → Open to strangers. While it is on you are shown other people who have also turned it on — a colour, and their town if they have made that public — and they are shown you the same way.
Nothing happens unless you both say hello. A pass is silent and looks identical to a hello that was never returned, so nobody can tell they were turned down. When a conversation does open, both of you are masked — it is the one part of OTR where neither side knows who the other is, and no game can change that.
Turn the tap off
You do not have to take masked messages at all. In You:
- Accept masked messages — off, and only people willing to put their name to it can write to you.
- Friends only — your link works only for people you have accepted.
- Pause my link — nothing new gets through at all. Existing conversations carry on.
- Allow games — off, and nobody can start roulette or Guess Who with you.
- Open to strangers — off by default, and nobody is ever suggested to you or you to them.
None of these are permanent and none of them tell anybody. You can turn your link back on whenever you want.
Games never unmask you without you
Roulette and Guess Who can end with a mask coming off — but only the sender's mask, and only after they choose to let it. Landing on the loaded chamber offers them the reveal; they can bail instead. Nothing you do in a game ever reveals you, because you were never the one hiding.
What is not allowed
The full list is in the terms. In short: no harassment, no threats, no sexual content involving minors, no intimate images shared without consent, no doxxing, no impersonation, no hate. Anonymity is for saying the true thing you were too shy to say. It is not cover.
If you are in danger
If somebody has threatened you, or you are frightened for your safety, please contact your local police. OTR is not an emergency service and we cannot act at that speed.
We keep records that can help a lawful request from the police, and we will respond to one. Report the conversation in the app first, and do not delete it — a deleted conversation is genuinely gone, and takes the evidence with it.
If you are struggling
If any of this has left you in a bad place, please talk to somebody. In the UK, Samaritans are on 116 123, free, any hour of any day. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com will find the equivalent where you are.
Tell us
If something is wrong and the buttons in the app do not cover it, write to [email protected]. A person reads that address.