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Closer look

For the conversation you keep replaying.

You already know the thought is unfair. In the moment, you cannot hold the fair version in your head. Take a closer look, and it holds it for you.

  • Free. No account.
  • iPhone and Android.
  • Adults, 18 and over.

The idea

“I went blank” is what happened.

“I'm a fraud” (struck out) is what you decided.

Within an hour those two have become one sentence. A closer look pulls them back apart, using nothing except what you wrote down.

Where it goes

“I'm a fraud” is the kind of sentence you would never say out loud. Most apps keep it by default.

Type it into a chatbot and it is stored against your account, where staff may read it to check the model's answers and it may be used to train the next version. Most now offer a temporary chat or a setting that turns training off, if you find it and remember to use it before you type.

A typical chatbotwhere the sentence ends up
By default it sits on their servers, in your history, under your name.
Staff may read it to check the model's answers.
It may be used to train the next model, unless you turned that off before you typed.

The bad hour passes. The record of it usually does not.

Closer Lookwhere the sentence ends up
There is no “you” on a server, and every look you finish is saved on this phone.
Press Look and that one paragraph goes out once and comes back. We keep no copy and write no log.
The model is one named service, on terms that forbid keeping it or training on it. No second provider, and no silent fallback.

You choose whether anything is ever sent, the first time you press the button. There is a mode where nothing ever leaves the phone. Read the privacy policy.

How it works

Three minutes, then it is over.

Write it down, or say it

One blank field. Similar things you have written are offered back.

Or is it one of these again?I'm not up to this jobEveryone can tell I'm faking it

Scroll through the look

One part at a time, in the same order every time.

What the evidence saysNobody left the room.

Correct it, then put it away

Reword what is wrong. Keep the plan or skip it. Then the app goes quiet.

Built on techniques from cognitive behavioural therapy. The app names each one and who studied it, and says plainly what the evidence does and does not show.

After a few of these

It shows you the answer you keep giving yourself.

Not the harsh sentence. The thing you decided to do about it, in your own words, the next time you open the app. Nothing is counted and nothing is scored.

It stays quiet until there is enough written down to say anything honest, which is about six of these, however long that takes you.

What it refuses to do

It does not want you back tomorrow.

The questions come from the same short set every time, in the same order, so they start to stick. Once you can run them in your own head, you stop opening this. That is the point. If we grew how often you opened it, the number we would be growing is how often you have a bad hour.

No account
No reminders
No streaks
Nothing counted at you
No chat
No compliments

Whether it is for you

You will know within one bad hour.

Built for

  • You have reread the message you sent four times.
  • One thing you said is still going round hours later.
  • Something went wrong and you have already decided what it says about you.
  • You could argue anyone else out of this. Not yourself.

The wrong thing for

  • Anything you need a person for tonight.
  • Keeping a daily record of how you are.
  • Somebody to talk to, back and forth.
  • Anything that needs a diagnosis or treatment.

If what you write reads heavier than a bad hour, the app stops and gives you people to call instead. That check happens on your phone, before anything is sent.

Private beta

Join the private beta with your email below.