Love Letters an old typewriter writes you a letter by a sunlit window
A vintage typewriter on a desk by an open window at golden hour. No one sits at it, yet the keys go down one by one and type you a warm, old-fashioned letter, dated today. Add your first name and every letter is written to you.
Free to install. Love Letters unlocks with Pro: $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever.
What you see on every new tab
Love Letters is a writing desk in late afternoon light: a black typewriter in the middle, a steaming mug to the left, an open window behind with a backlit tree in it. A blank sheet winds in from behind the roller, waits a moment, and then the machine begins on its own. Each letter is written in the manner of the 1800s, from someone who has watched you for a long time and thinks well of you, and it takes about a minute and a half to type. When it is done the sheet is wound up so you can read the whole page, it rests there for eighteen seconds, and then it rolls up and out of the machine and a fresh sheet comes in.
Fifty letters: each one is a fixed text of about 60 to 80 words with its own greeting and sign-off, such as "Ever yours, in faithful affection," or "Your grateful pupil,". They are dealt from a shuffled pile, so you see all fifty before any comes round again, and the pile is shared by every tab you open.
The date line: the top right of each sheet carries the date the way a letter-writer of the time would put it, for example "Saturday, the tenth of October." It is taken from your computer's clock when the letter is started. There is no year.
The keys: every character presses its own key on the machine. Capitals hold down the shift key on the other hand first, spaces press the bar, and a dark typebar shows for an instant at the guide on each strike. The rhythm is uneven on purpose: common pairs like "th" come quicker, there is a beat between words, a longer pause at commas and full stops, sometimes a stop to think, and a long breath before the sign-off.
The ink: the text is set in Courier Prime and printed onto the sheet stroke by stroke. Each character sits a little off its line in its own fixed way, as on a worn machine, and the pressure, the ribbon grain and the odd faded edge change from strike to strike. Every new line rolls the whole sheet up a step.
The room: steam curls up from the mug, the tree in the window sways and its leaves shimmer, dust motes drift in the bright parts of the light, and the sunlight swells and fades a little over time.
Nothing is a video. The desk, the machine and the window come from one still picture of the scene. Your graphics card animates it every frame: the sheet of paper is a separate layer that slides through the machine, each pressed key is shifted down in the picture, and the steam, dust and swaying tree are added on top. The typing itself is drawn letter by letter onto the sheet as it happens.
What it reacts to
Name: type a name in the "Your name" box in the Themes panel and the greeting uses it, as in "My dearest Anna,". Sixteen of the fifty letters also say it once more partway through. Only the first word is used, accents are dropped and the first letter is made a capital. Change it while a letter is being typed and the page is redone with the new name.
Mouse: nothing. The pointer has no effect on the scene.
Click: click anywhere while a letter is being typed or resting and the sheet is wound out quickly and a new letter begins.
Music: nothing. This theme does not use music sync.
Sound: an early-spring dawn chorus in a field by a lake; as it gets dark the birds hand over to a field full of crickets. Sound starts soft on a new install, and you can turn it down or off right on the New Tab.
Night: after dusk the scene changes to a night version of the same room: moonlight in the window and the glow of a fire somewhere behind you, flickering on the desk and the page. The top of the sheet turns cool under the moon and the lower half warm under the firelight. The page is not dimmed by the general night shade.
Clock: each letter is dated the day it was started, by your computer's calendar.
Free or Pro?Pro
Ambient New Tab is free to install, with five free themes. Love Letters is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever, and it unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as we release it. You can preview Love Letters full screen before you buy: open the Themes panel and rest your mouse on it. Changed your mind? 14-day refund, no questions.
Open a new tab and click the Themes pill in the bottom-right corner.
Pick Love Letters. Done.
Love Letters on a 1280×800 New Tab page.
From day to night
Love Letters follows the sun where you live and turns to night after sunset. You can also pin day or night in the Themes panel.
Golden hourDuskNight
Questions
If I open a new tab, does the letter start again?
No. Where the typewriter has got to is kept in your browser, so a new tab picks up the same letter at the same place, with the same ink. If nothing has been typed for six hours, the next tab starts a new letter instead.
Is Love Letters free?
It is a Pro theme. Pro is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, cancel anytime, or $59 once for Pro Forever. It unlocks every Pro theme, music sync, and every new theme as it is released.
Do I have to give my name?
No. Leave the box empty and the letters open with "Dear heart," "My dear heart," "Dearest one," or "My dear one," and the lines that would use your name are written without it.
Does it work on my phone?
No. It's a desktop browser extension for Chrome on Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. If you're reading this on a phone, send yourself the link.
