How Hily Finder Works

Finder shows you people who fit your filters for location, age, gender and anything else you have set. Scroll up on a card to see the rest of what she shared, then tap the heart to like her or the X to skip her. When she likes you back, you have a match and the chat opens.

Finder is the main feed in Hily. Each card is one person, and the people you see are chosen by your filters: where they are, how old they are, their gender, and any other preferences you have set.

That makes your filters the first decision you make, before you see a single face. Change them and you change who Finder puts in front of you.

The first photo is only the start. Scroll up on a card and you see her full profile: the rest of her photos and whatever she has written about herself.

Do this before you decide. It takes a few seconds, and it is where you find out whether you actually want to talk to her. It is also where you find your first line. A woman who mentions a trip, a dog, or a strong opinion about pizza has handed you something to say.

Every card gets one of two answers.

• Tap the heart to like her.
• Tap the X to skip her.

A like does nothing visible straight away. It waits for her own decision about you. A skip moves you on to the next card.

A match needs both of you. You like her, she likes you, and Hily matches you. It does not matter which of you tapped first. The chat opens as soon as the like is mutual.

Until then, neither of you can write in the normal way. For almost every woman you like, the whole first impression rests on what she sees on your card.

Filters are easy to set once and forget. Take a minute to set them properly.

Age is the obvious one. Set the range to women you would genuinely be glad to date, not the widest range the app allows. Distance matters just as much. A radius far wider than you would travel for a first drink fills Finder with women you will never realistically see. Every like you spend on them is one you do not spend on someone nearby.

Filters work in both directions, too. a dating coach has pointed out that a woman who caps her age range will never see a man above it, however well they might get on in person. You cannot change her filters. You can make sure yours point at women who are likely to have you in theirs.

The fastest way to use Finder badly is to like almost everyone and sort it out later.

coach used to like nearly every woman the app showed him, and he says that stopped working and started to hurt him. His reasoning is about how apps behave. An app has every reason to notice a man who likes everyone, and he believes it probably reads that man as less selective and less attractive. Then it shows him to fewer of the women he actually wants.

So like the women you would actually take out, and skip the rest without guilt. You end up with fewer matches, but each one is a woman you have a reason to write to.

coach breaks online dating into a chain of steps: time on the app, matches, how many of those are women you really want, replies, numbers, and dates. When results are poor, his first question is which step is weak.

If Finder gives you plenty of matches but the chats go nowhere, your first messages are the problem. If it gives you almost no matches, look at your photos and what you have written first. His point is that it is hard to get better at conversation with no women to practice on, so fix the top of that chain before you worry about anything below it.

Write soon. My point is that a woman you match with is also talking to other men, and the longer you take, the more likely one of them takes her out first.

Keep your opener short and build it from something on her card. Then keep things moving. coach gets from a first message to a woman's number within four to seven messages. In his view she needs three things before she will meet: some attraction, enough comfort to know you are a real and normal person, and plans already mentioned by both of you. Put all three in, suggest a simple plan, and move it off the app.