Part of Notes from the Road, our city-by-city series.
The short answer: Craigslist’s UK sites have had no Personals section since 2018, and Gumtree has none either. No single site replaced them. Personal ads in the UK now live on a few Reddit boards, such as r/londonersr4r and r/ScotlandR4R, in Locanto’s personals section, on Doublelist, in a monthly printed personals paper from London, and in text-first apps including AseeksB. In October 2026 we read the newest ads in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.
The UK still says lonely hearts, the old name for the personal column in British papers, and people still search for it, about 590 times a month, alongside about 18,100 searches for “personals” (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Outside London, though, most searches by city are for one classifieds site by name: “locanto birmingham” gets about 2,400 a month, against about 40 for “birmingham personals.”
So this page goes city by city. London has a busy Reddit board of its own, and Scotland has one for the whole country. Manchester and Birmingham have none, and the classified sites there are either quiet or, in Manchester’s case, mostly escort ads. And London has something no other city in this series has: a monthly printed personals paper, with anonymous ads of up to 40 words and replies forwarded by post.
Here is how each option works in the UK, from our checks on October 6, 2026 in London and October 9 everywhere else:
For each city below, we read the 20 newest ads on Locanto and Doublelist, and SeekingList’s recent ads for that city, and counted the escort ads and the ones that asked readers to move off-site. Passing this test doesn’t make an ad genuine: an ad can look ordinary and still try to move you to another app once you reply. AseeksB ads can’t be read without an account, so they weren’t counted. How we check.
AseeksB publishes this page and is included in it. For how each site handles the eight traits that defined Craigslist Personals, see our full comparison.
Coming from Reddit or a classified site? On AseeksB you still write an ad in your own words, but you choose who can see it, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; and no photo or real name is needed. Posting, browsing, and replying are free. How AseeksB works.
“doublelist london” gets about 1,000 searches a month, down 58% on last year, “doublelist glasgow” about 260, and “doublelist manchester” about 40 (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Doublelist has London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow pages, but none for Edinburgh. Anyone can see ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. Posting is free for up to 3 posts, and seeing members’ photos takes a paid plan; its help center lists two, Hookup and Hardcore, at $45 and $90 a year (US dollars).
On October 6, 2026, none of its 20 newest London ads asked readers to move off-site or offered paid services. Its other UK pages are quiet: Manchester’s 20th newest ad was from June 2, 2022, and 8 of its 10 ads posted as women were escort ads; Birmingham’s 20th newest was from November 9, 2019, with 6 of 9; and Glasgow had only 18 ads in all, 7 of them escort ads posted as women. That is a snapshot of the newest ads on one day, not a measure of the whole site.
If you’re coming from Doublelist, AseeksB works differently, though most of its members are still in the US: you choose who can see your post, by gender and age; someone can send one message per post until you reply; admins actively monitor posts; and posting, browsing, and replying are free. For more options, see sites like Doublelist.
London runs on the Tube, and so does London dating: Londoners often say where they live by zone, the way people in other cities name a neighbourhood. Zone 2 to zone 4 is nothing on a map. In practice it is a different evening entirely.
Then there is the river. North and south of the Thames behave almost like two cities that happen to share a name, and “I’m not crossing the river” is a sentence people say without a trace of irony. Postcodes do real work too: an E8 night out is not an SW evening, and everyone has a quiet limit on how far they will travel for a first drink. A personal ad can say that limit out loud, before anyone commits to an hour on the Northern line.
What we found. On October 6, 2026, none of the 20 newest London ads on r/londonersr4r or Doublelist asked readers to move off-site or offered paid services. On Locanto, 3 did, all posted as women and all escort ads with contact details. On SeekingList, 1 did, offering paid services with contact details; 16 of its 20 were r/londonersr4r posts that open on Reddit, and 14 of those had already been deleted there by the people who posted them.
Reddit. r/londonersr4r had about 7,700 weekly visitors and 712 weekly contributions on Reddit’s count. It sets no minimum karma or account age, comments are open on posts, and its rules don’t allow posts involving infidelity. Craigslist London’s missed connections listing had no posts when we looked.
Beyond the apps. Speed-dating companies run nights across London, including lesbian speed dating from MySpeedDate, according to its listings.
Manchester spills well past its centre, across the Irwell into Salford and out to Stockport and the rest of Greater Manchester, and the tram lines and the M60 decide what counts as near. Say which end of the Metrolink you are on.
What we found. On Locanto, 15 of the 20 newest Manchester ads were posted as women, and all 15 were escort ads, including two ads copied four times each; one man’s ad was an escort ad too. Doublelist’s Manchester page is quiet: its 20th newest ad was from June 2, 2022, and 8 of the 10 posted as women were escort ads. SeekingList had no Manchester listings, and Craigslist Manchester’s missed connections had no posts.
Reddit. Manchester has no r4r board of its own. Posts from Manchester can go on the general boards, such as r/r4r, with a #location in the title.
Beyond the apps. Original Dating runs speed dating by age range in Manchester, and “SpeedFriending” nights for platonic connections, according to its website.
Birmingham is the UK’s second city by population, and searches for its classifieds have climbed: “locanto birmingham” is up 125% on last year, to about 2,400 a month (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). From the Jewellery Quarter to Moseley, it helps to say which side of the ring road you are on.
What we found. On Locanto, 2 of the 20 newest Birmingham ads were escort ads, both posted as women and both seen in other cities, and 2 men’s ads offered to pay. Doublelist’s Birmingham page is quieter still: its 20th newest ad was from November 9, 2019, and 6 of the 9 posted as women were escort ads, one a copy of an ad in Manchester. SeekingList had no Birmingham listings, and Craigslist Birmingham’s missed connections had no posts.
Reddit. Like Manchester, Birmingham has no r4r board of its own, so posts from Birmingham can go on the general boards instead.
Beyond the apps. Original Dating holds speed dating by age range in Birmingham city centre, and occasional singles parties, according to its website.
Glasgow and Edinburgh are under an hour apart by train, and neither has an r4r board of its own; Scotland has one for the whole country. A good ad here names the city first, and then whether you would make the trip along the M8.
What we found. On Locanto, 5 of the 20 newest Glasgow ads were escort ads, all posted as women, 3 of them seen in other cities; in Edinburgh, 2 were, both posted as women and both seen elsewhere. Doublelist had only 18 Glasgow ads in all, the oldest from January 17, 2019; 7 posted as women were escort ads, 3 of them copies of ads in Manchester or Birmingham, and a pop-up ad covered the Glasgow page, above a sponsored listing written to look like a personal ad. Doublelist has no Edinburgh page. SeekingList’s Glasgow and Edinburgh listings were the same r/ScotlandR4R posts, about seven months old, and 13 had since been deleted by the people who posted them. Craigslist’s Glasgow and Edinburgh missed connections had no posts.
Reddit. r/ScotlandR4R had about 46,000 followers, and Reddit showed about 10,000 weekly visitors and 3,500 weekly contributions. A smaller board, r/r4rScotland, with about 2,100 followers and 138 weekly visitors, is strictly safe for work: no hookups, FWB, kink, poly, or “sugar” posts, and no members with NSFW post history or usernames. Titles need your age, a tag, and a #location, posts need at least 50 words, accounts must be at least a week old, and phone numbers, addresses, and usernames for other apps aren’t allowed. It suggests starting conversations in the public thread, since moderators can’t see private messages.
Beyond the apps. Original Dating runs speed dating by age range in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, according to its website.
Bristol, Leeds, and Liverpool weren’t part of this check. The general Reddit boards take posts from anywhere in the UK with a #location tag, The Lonely Hearts Club has been stocked in Bristol and Leeds, and Original Dating runs singles nights in Liverpool. AseeksB works anywhere in the UK, with the distance shown on every post. For more ways to meet people, with or without an app, see our guide to alternatives to dating apps.
Craigslist still has UK sites, but not for personals: that section went in 2018, and searches for it have mostly faded, with “craigslist london personals” down 86% on last year to about 40 a month (Google Keyword Planner, October 2026). Its missed connections listings had no posts in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, or Edinburgh when we looked. Gumtree has no personals or missed connections section either; the closest it has is a page for finding travel partners. Guardian Soulmates, the Guardian’s dating site, closed at the end of June 2020, after almost 16 years. The London Review of Books, whose personal ads ran from 1998 and filled two books, stopped printing them in 2010; our piece on personal ads in literature has the story. Which site comes closest to Craigslist depends on what you used it for: reading ads without signing up, replying without a match, or staying anonymous. Our Craigslist alternatives comparison sorts the sites by those traits. If you came looking for Doublelist or Locanto in the UK, the numbers above are what we found; for more, see sites like Doublelist and sites like Locanto.
The oldest ads in our archive come from London. On December 28, 1803, a tradesman put this in The Times:
“MATRIMONY.—A TRADESMAN, in a pleasant part of London, wishes to meet with a PARTNER for LIFE.”
The Times, December 28, 1803. Read the noticeA handsome face, he went on, mattered less to him than an agreeable, prudent person, and replies went under cover to a third party on Lombard Street, to be kept with “the strictest honour and secrecy.” The Times’s personal notices later became known as the agony column, and in 1881 Alice Clay collected them from 1800 to 1870 in a book. Two more from it are in the archive: a young nobleman who lost sight of a woman in mourning outside Covent Garden Theatre, and a woman who passed a man in Hart Street, Bloomsbury, without speaking to him. More in our history of personal ads, the agony column in fiction, and The Personals Archive.
A text-first ad lets you put it in plain words: your area, your zone, your scene, and how far you are willing to go. AseeksB is American-built and most of its members are still in the US, so in the UK treat it as an early, honest way to post what you are after and see who is around, not a crowded local listing. It is free to download and post, and every post shows how far away it was posted.
One honest difference: AseeksB ads can only be read inside the app after signing up, unlike Reddit’s boards and most of the classified sites above. That is the trade for choosing exactly who sees each post.
If you post in the UK, you’re early, and we’d love to hear what would make AseeksB work better there: tell us through the app, from the profile tab.
Text-first personal ads for London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the rest of the UK, in your own words, with distance and other controls in Supporter.
No single site did. Craigslist’s UK sites have had no Personals section since 2018, and Gumtree has none either. People in the UK now post on a few Reddit boards, such as r/londonersr4r and r/ScotlandR4R, in Locanto’s personals section, on Doublelist, in a monthly printed personals paper from London, and in text-first apps such as AseeksB. They differ mainly in who can read your ad and how replies reach you.
Yes, r/londonersr4r. In October 2026, Reddit showed about 7,700 weekly visitors and 712 weekly contributions. Anyone can read the posts without an account, but posting, commenting, or messaging needs a Reddit account. It sets no minimum karma or account age, comments are open, and its rules don’t allow posts involving infidelity.
Yes, r/ScotlandR4R, which had about 46,000 followers in October 2026, with about 10,000 weekly visitors and 3,500 weekly contributions on Reddit’s count. It covers Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the rest of Scotland. A smaller board, r/r4rScotland, is strictly safe for work. Manchester and Birmingham have no r4r board of their own.
No. When we checked in October 2026, Gumtree had no personals or missed connections section. The closest it has is a page for finding travel partners.
Doublelist has pages for London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow, but not Edinburgh. Anyone can see ad titles, but reading a full ad needs an account. Outside London the pages are quiet: in October 2026 the 20th newest ad in Manchester was from 2022, in Birmingham from 2019, and Glasgow had only 18 ads in all.
Yes, though most of its members are still in the US. AseeksB is a free personal ads app for iOS and Android. You choose who sees each post by gender and age range, every post shows how far away it was posted, and Supporters can also set a maximum distance. A free account keeps one active post, and someone can send one message per post until you reply.