Frequently asked questions

Neeli is an emotional wellness app. It connects you with a trained listener for a private one-to-one conversation, by voice or video, whenever you feel like talking. There is no waiting list, no appointment and no obligation to explain yourself first. You open the app, choose a listener who is available, and start talking.

No. Neeli is not therapy, counselling, psychiatric care or any form of medical treatment, and it does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. Listeners on Neeli are trained to listen well and respond with care, but they are not licensed mental health professionals, and using Neeli does not create a doctor-patient or therapist-client relationship. If you need clinical care, please see a qualified mental health professional.

Listeners are ordinary people who have applied to be on Neeli, completed an identity verification step, and been trained on how to hold a supportive conversation, what they must never do, and how to respond if someone is in distress. They are independent contractors, not employees, and they are bound by our Community Guidelines and Listener Agreement. They are not counsellors and are not permitted to give medical, legal or financial advice.

Yes. Conversations on Neeli are one-to-one and private. Listeners are required to keep what you share confidential, with a narrow exception where safety or the law requires disclosure — for example a credible risk to someone's life. Neeli stores metadata about a call, such as who spoke to whom, when and for how long, because we need it for safety investigations and dispute resolution. Read the Privacy Policy for the complete, itemised list of what is collected and why.

Neeli does not record the content of your calls. We store only call metadata — the participants, the start and end time, the duration and the outcome. Recording a Neeli call is also prohibited for both sides: neither you nor the listener may record, screenshot or redistribute a conversation. Anyone who does can be permanently removed from the platform.

No. You can use a nickname, and you can choose an audio-only call so no camera is used at all. You never have to share your phone number, your address, your social media handles or any other contact detail with a listener — and listeners are forbidden from asking for them or moving the conversation off Neeli.

Anything that is weighing on you. People use Neeli for loneliness, a breakup, family pressure, work or exam stress, moving to a new city, a bad night they cannot sleep through, or simply for company when the house is too quiet. There is no minimum seriousness required. You do not have to be in crisis to deserve a conversation.

Sexual content, nudity or solicitation of any kind; harassment, hate speech or discrimination; asking for money or offering payment outside the app; sharing contact details or moving the conversation to another platform; recording or screenshotting calls; impersonation; and anything involving a minor. Neeli is strictly for adults aged 18 and over. Breaking these rules can end your account permanently. The Community Guidelines set all of this out in full.

Every call has a report button, with specific reasons you can pick from and a free-text box for anything else. Reports are reviewed by a human. Depending on what happened, the outcome can be a warning, a suspension, a permanent ban, or a referral to law enforcement. You can also block another user, which removes them from your view and stops any further contact between you — neither of you can call the other again. Serious categories, such as anything involving a minor or non-consensual imagery, are treated as immediate removals.

Neeli is not an emergency service and cannot dispatch help. If you are in immediate danger, or you are thinking about suicide or self-harm, please contact Tele-MANAS on 14416, KIRAN on 1800-599-0019, or emergency services on 112. These are free, staffed around the clock, and trained for exactly this. Neeli listeners are instructed to stay with you and point you to these numbers if this comes up in a conversation.

Neeli is for adults aged 18 and over. Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, anyone under 18 is a child, and Neeli is not built for children. If we find out that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it and delete the data associated with it.

You can delete your account from inside the app: tap the profile icon in the top right corner, tap More, then Delete account at the bottom of the screen. Tap Continue, type in the user ID the app shows you, and tap Delete my account. Your account is terminated immediately and cannot be restored. You can also request deletion from the web, without reinstalling the app, using the email route on our Account and Data Deletion page. That page also sets out exactly what is deleted, what we are legally required to keep, for how long, and what happens to anything unused in your account.