Half the anxiety in a difficult exchange is not writing. It is rereading something short and flat until it sounds worse than it is. Second Read takes the message you received and says what the words are actually doing.
01
What it does
For the message you are afraid to reread
Rewrite handles what you are about to send. Second Read handles the other half of it: the message that landed badly, that you have now read four times, and that gets colder each time.
It reads the wording, not the person. It is not a lie detector.
It is most useful on a short, flat message that could be read two ways.
It costs one action from the same pool as Rewrite and Prepare.
02
What to give it
Paste it exactly as it arrived
Resist tidying it up. The punctuation is part of the tone: a full stop at the end of a one-word reply is doing work, and so is its absence.
Keep the capitalisation, the punctuation, and the line breaks.
Do not paraphrase. A paraphrase is already your reading of it.
Add who it is from if they are saved in People: the same words from a manager and a friend are not the same message.
03
What you get
Five things, and one of them is the point
The reading is broken into parts so you can disagree with one without discarding the rest. The one people find most useful is the fourth.
The gist: what it says, in plain words.
A tone reading: what the wording is doing.
What it likely means.
What it probably does not mean: the reading you have already talked yourself into.
Intentions that would fit a reply.
04
What Tildi keeps
The message is not stored anywhere
A message you paste into Second Read is handled exactly like a draft: it is sent when you press Read it, and it is not added to Tildi’s application database or to Saved.
It is sent only when you press Read it: not as you type or paste.
Neither the message nor the reading is kept afterwards.
Copy anything you want to keep before you leave the screen.
05
The reply
Taking it into a reply
The suggested intentions are there to hand you straight to Rewrite with the choice already half made. Sometimes there is no shortcut offered, and that is a real answer too.
Choosing a suggested intention opens Write with it selected.
When no reply shortcut appears, start in Write when you are ready.