Can You Send Photos in a Tinder Chat?

No. Tinder says it does not allow photos to be sent directly in chats. Once you have matched, you can chat, and Tinder suggests adding a Bitmoji or a GIF if you want to liven up your first line. So every photo she sees of you on Tinder has to already be on your profile.

Tinder made the point in an announcement about its safety features. Whatever the reasoning, the effect is simple. Nothing comes into the chat as a picture, and nothing goes out.

For you, that is not really a loss. It means no woman is going to be handed a photo she never asked for from a stranger, and it means you are never tempted to send one before you have even met. A lot of men have damaged a promising chat with one badly judged picture. On Tinder, that option is simply not there.

Text, mostly. Tinder suggests a Bitmoji message or a GIF to liven up an opener, and both have their place.

A GIF works best as a reply. She makes a joke, and you answer with a reaction that fits. As a whole first message, it is usually lazy. It asks her to do the work of turning a moving picture into a conversation.

Words do far more. A specific first line, built from something on her page, gives her a reason to answer. "Your dog looks like he has strong opinions about the couch. Who wins?" says more about you than any GIF, because it shows you looked.

Because the chat is text only, the photos on your page are all the photos she gets. She cannot ask you to send one more. Whatever she is wondering about you, your set has to answer it before she decides.

So build the set with that in mind. Lead with a clear, recent photo of your face, alone, in good light. Follow it with a photo of you doing something you actually do. Add one with friends, where you look like you belong. Vary the places and the clothes, so it looks like weeks of your life rather than one afternoon.

Leave out anything more than a couple of years old, sunglasses in the lead photo, and any shot where she has to guess which man is you. Every photo that raises a question she cannot ask is working against you.

The photos show her what you look like and roughly how you live. The few words under them have to give her something to say.

Skip the list of labels. "Gym, travel, good food" could be anyone. Write one or two specific lines instead, ideally with a hook she can pick up. "My sourdough starter has outlived two houseplants. Ask me about either" is small, but it is a line a woman can answer.

That is what makes a page stand out on Tinder. A page does not stand out by being clever. It stands out by being specific enough that she knows what to say first.

Sometimes a woman will say she wants to see more photos of you. That is interest, and it is a good sign.

You do not need to rush off to another app to satisfy it. Keep it light and move toward a plan: "You'll get the full picture over a drink on Thursday. Does that work?" If she is keen, that is a better answer than a photo.

Be wary of the opposite case. An account that pushes you onto another app or a link in the first couple of lines, or asks for your photos straight away, is far more often a scam than an eager woman. Use the blue shield in the chat to report it.

Once you have her number and a plan, photos can come up naturally. A picture of the bar you picked, the dog she asked about, or what you are cooking tonight is ordinary texting between two people who are going to meet.

Keep it to that. Never send anything sexual she has not clearly asked for. A woman who has agreed to a drink with you can still change her mind in one text, and one picture she did not want is the fastest way to make that happen.

You cannot send photos in a Tinder chat. You can send text, a Bitmoji or a GIF. That makes your profile, your photos and your bio the whole of your first impression, so build them to answer her questions before she asks, and save the photo sharing for after you have her number.