Talk to strangers online by Voice or Text

You do not need an account to use HearMe. Tick the box that says you are 18 or older, pick a nickname, and tap Start a voice chat or Start a text chat. There is no email to confirm, no phone number to share and nothing to install, so stranger chat takes less than a minute to begin on a phone or a laptop.

• A browser on Android, iPhone or desktop. HearMe runs on the web and is light on mobile data.
• A nickname. Pick any name you like; nobody is asked for a real one.
• A microphone, only if you want a voice call. Text chat needs nothing else.
• Confirmation that you are 18 or older. HearMe is for adults, 18+ only.

A free account is optional. It lets you add friends and send direct messages; guests have no daily limit either. It is never a condition for taking part, and starting a chat or sending a message is always free. Premium is a separate, paid extra that adds a gender filter, a country filter, priority in matching and a badge. It never decides whether you are allowed to talk.

Each chat is one stranger at a time, matched at random and biased by the interests you tag. If you want to understand how the matching works, read the guide to stranger chat. If you would rather call than type, the page on how to call strangers covers the voice side. The general case for staying nameless lives on the anonymous chat page, and the random chat page covers the roulette-style start.

Talking to someone you have never met carries some risk, and HearMe is built around that fact. HearMe is for adults, 18+ only. Every text message passes an automatic check for signs that someone is under 18 or being abusive, and rate limits slow down anyone who floods a chat.

• What a stranger sees: your nickname, your avatar and the flag of your country. Not your name, your number, your email or your face. There is no camera on HearMe at all.
• Reports: tap Report in any chat, call or room. A person reads every report, not only a filter.
• Calls are not recorded. Only when someone is reported does the last 60 seconds of that call get uploaded for review, and those clips are deleted after 7 days unless a moderator confirms the report as child safety or under 18; then it is kept as evidence for one year.
• Text chats are not attached to a profile. Messages are held for 24 hours so a report can be reviewed, then deleted.
• Block stops you meeting that person again, signed in or not. Bans apply to the account, the device and the network.

Guests and signed-in people follow the same rules. Guests can Report and Block too; the difference is that a free account can also add friends and keep a direct message thread going. If you are curious how this compares with sites that rely on video, remember that on HearMe there is nothing to record, nothing to screenshot and no face to identify, only a nickname and a voice or some words. People who choose to talk with strangers here still decide what to reveal, and nobody can see more than you type or say.

You are the best filter. Never share where you live, where you work, a phone number or an account password, and leave the chat the moment it stops feeling right. Tap Next, or Report if someone broke the rules. The longer version, with conversation starters, is in the guide on how to talk to strangers safely, and the community guidelines say what gets someone banned.

Both are private and one to one. Both are free. The difference is how much of yourself you give away, and how fast the conversation moves.

Voice is warm and quick. A voice chat with strangers lets you hear tone, laughter and hesitation, and you cover more ground in five minutes than you would typing. The trade-offs are real: a voice carries accent, age and mood, it needs a quiet place, and the browser asks for your microphone before the call starts. Calls are mic only, with no camera, and they are not recorded. The voice chat page explains the call screen.

Text is slower and easier to control. Text chat with strangers asks for nothing but a keyboard, works with the sound off, and gives you time to think before you answer. It suits a shy start, a crowded train or a late night with sleeping people nearby. You lose tone, so jokes can read as cold, and a quiet partner is harder to read. The text chat page covers games, Next and what happens when someone leaves.

• Pick voice when you want a quick, warm conversation, you are somewhere you can talk, and you are comfortable being heard.
• Pick text when you want to stay quiet, you are on a shared connection or in public, or you want time to choose your words.
• Pick either when you are just curious. Both start from the same queue and both let you tap Next.

A few habits make a voice chat better. Use headphones if you can, because they stop your partner hearing themselves echo back. Find a quiet corner, tell the other person if you need to move, and mute yourself with one tap when you need a moment. Remember that a stranger can hear whatever your microphone picks up, so close the door on anything you would rather keep private. If your connection is weak, text chat uses far less data and survives patchy mobile coverage better.

If you are unsure, start with text and move to a call with the next person once you know what you want to say. Nothing is lost by switching. Every Next is a fresh match.

A good first message is short and easy to answer. Say hello, say what language you would like to speak, and ask one open question: what is the best thing you ate this week, what are you listening to, what made you smile today. Skip "asl" and skip anything you would not say to a stranger on a bus. If the chat stalls, offer a small game: text chats have Tic-Tac-Toe, Rock Paper Scissors, Four in a row and Dots and Boxes, and your partner can accept or decline.

• "Hi, which language is easiest for you?" gets the language question out of the way.
• "What is a song you keep replaying?" is easy to answer and easy to follow up.
• "What is something small that went well today?" works at any hour.
• "Can I ask you a random question?" is a friendly way to start when you talk with strangers who might be shy.

Some hours are quieter than others, and we will not hide that. The number in the header is the real count of people online right now, and no count or card on HearMe is seeded or invented. If nobody is free the moment you tap Start, you wait in the queue and anyone who is waiting is matched with you after about 20 seconds, even if your interests differ. You can also add a few interest tags to steer the next match, and rooms only appear when at least three people were active in the last hour.

Quiet is not a failure of the site, and it is not a reason to give up. Try again at another time of day, tag one or two interests you share with many people rather than a very narrow one, or open a text chat with strangers while you wait, since text needs no setup at all. Staying polite and patient is the fastest way to a good conversation once someone does arrive.

Hours overlap more than people expect, because evening in one country is morning or afternoon in another. The country notes below show how. For more openers and the etiquette, read how to talk to strangers, or browse the blog.

HearMe runs in eight interface languages: English, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), Indonesian, Filipino, Spanish and Turkish. The language of the interface is only the language of the buttons. Matching is worldwide and never sorted by language or by country, so the person you meet might speak something else entirely. The one exception is the Premium country filter, which tries a country you choose first and then takes anyone after about 20 seconds: a preference, never a wall.

That is why the first message matters. Say which language you would like, for example "hola, español o inglés?", and if the answer is no, tap Next. If you share a second language, switching to it is an easy fix. If you prefer to compare this with video roulette sites, the alternatives page and the Omegle alternative page set out what differs, feature by feature, with no video on our side.

Interest tags are free for everyone and nudge the match towards people who picked the same ones, such as music, football or a language you are learning. They bias the match and do not guarantee it: anyone waiting is matched after about 20 seconds. If you want to practise a language you are learning, say so in your first message and keep sentences short. If you want a more specific audience, the country pages below are a good start.

Matching is worldwide, but a few countries have a page of their own with local hours. Offsets below are standard time against UTC, and daylight saving shifts them by an hour where it applies. HearMe is 18+ only in every country.