Removing a conversation from your inbox
When a conversation has truly run its course, you can tidy it away with a small trash icon. Here is what the icon does, and why it only appears next to some conversations.
What the trash icon does
Tapping the trash icon removes that conversation from your inbox only. Your penpal still sees the conversation in their own inbox — nothing is deleted on their side. It is simply a way to keep your inbox focused on the friendships you are actively building.
You will always be asked to confirm before anything is removed.
When you’ll see the trash icon
The trash icon only appears when a conversation is genuinely stale. There are three situations:
- Your penpal’s profile is no longer active If a penpal has left the club or been removed, the trash icon appears straight away so you can tidy up.
- Your first message has gone unanswered for over a week If you sent the first message and your penpal has not replied within a week, the trash icon appears so you can quietly move on. People sometimes never get to a first message — this gives you a graceful way to clear it.
- A two-way conversation has gone quiet for over a month For conversations where you and your penpal have both been writing, the trash icon appears once neither of you has sent a message for around a month. The friendship may simply have faded — and that is okay.
Why isn’t the trash icon always there?
We deliberately hide the trash icon while a conversation is still active and recent. This protects new and growing friendships from being deleted by accident — and stops anyone from clearing out a chat after a single difficult message.
As soon as either of you writes again, the trash icon quietly disappears. The conversation is alive again — and worth keeping.