The letters a grandparent wrote home, folded and refolded for eighty years. Recovoly finds the fold lines, holes and water rings, repairs them one by one, and brings faded paragraphs back - without changing a single stroke of the handwriting you want to keep.
Fold lines repaired
Broken words rejoined
Mark all damage
Found in one click
Faded paragraph back
Same hand, darker ink
Animated walkthrough of the AI Restore Studio repairing the folds, hole, water ring and faded ink on a 1944 family letter.
Free
Auto-detect finds folds, holes and stains
1
click marks all the damage on the page
0
words re-lettered - the hand stays theirs
12
areas per page, each with its own fix
A letter is folded to fit an envelope, then opened and read again and again. The paper gives way along the folds first - right through the words. A cup is set down on it. One page sits nearer the window and fades. After a lifetime in a shoebox, the damage is in particular places, not everywhere.
That's why a single filter over the whole letter never works: it bleaches the good paper with the bad and over-sharpens handwriting that was fine. Recovoly repairs each damaged spot on its own, with an instruction made for it, and leaves the rest of the letter exactly as it was written.
Folds
Creases that break the words they cross
Holes
Worn through where folds meet
Rings
Cups, damp and spills
Fading
One page or paragraph much lighter
Turn each repair on or off and watch the letter change - the folds, the hole, the water ring, the faded paragraph. Notice that the handwriting itself never moves.
Restore this damage
4 kinds of damage restored. Jack's handwriting is the same in every version.
14th June 1944
My dearest Margaret,
Your letter arrived this morning and I have
read it three times already. It is the best
thing to happen here in weeks. Tell little
Tommy his drawing of the farm is pinned
above my bunk where I see it every night.
We moved again last week and I cannot say
where, but the countryside is green and the
people kind. The food is plain but there is
enough of it, so don't you worry about me.
Give my love to Mother and Dad. I think of
you all every single day and count the days
until I am home with you again.
All my love, always,
Jack
x x x
14th June 1944
My dearest Margaret,
Your letter arrived this morning and I have
read it three times already. It is the best
thing to happen here in weeks. Tell little
Tommy his drawing of the farm is pinned
above my bunk where I see it every night.
We moved again last week and I cannot say
where, but the countryside is green and the
people kind. The food is plain but there is
enough of it, so don't you worry about me.
Give my love to Mother and Dad. I think of
you all every single day and count the days
until I am home with you again.
All my love, always,
Jack
x x x
Illustration. Drag the handle from the left to see the letter as it came out of the envelope.
Most letters are done in a few minutes.
Sign in to Recovoly and open the AI Restore Studio. New? A free account takes a minute.
A scan or a phone photo of each page - and the envelope, if you like. PDFs work too.
Auto-detect finds folds, holes and stains; Mark all damage turns them into Restore areas.
Box any faded paragraph, press Restore, compare with the original and download.
Every repair has a quick instruction in the studio. Tap it, or describe the fix in your own words.
Years of opening and refolding wear a crease that breaks every word it crosses.
Fix fold linePaper splits first where it was folded - often right through a line of writing.
Fill hole / tearWhere folds meet the paper wears through, taking a few letters with it.
Fill hole / tearA cup set down on the letter decades ago, or damp from a box in the attic.
Remove stainOne page, or one paragraph, faded far more than the rest.
Sharpen faded inkRust-brown speckles that land on letters and make them hard to read.
Remove foxing spotsYellowed sticky tape from an old repair, and the brown stain it leaves.
Remove tape markA blot from a leaky fountain pen sitting on top of a sentence.
Remove ink blotThe slope of the letters, the way they signed their name, the little crosses at the bottom - that's what makes a letter theirs. Recovoly never re-letters the writing in a font. It repairs the damage around and over the ink, strengthens faded strokes along the lines that were really written, and leaves every unmarked part of the page exactly as scanned.
Letterforms kept
Slant, loops and joins stay the writer's own.
Spelling as written
Old spellings and quirks are never corrected.
Signatures & kisses
The name and the x x x at the end stay just so.
Original always kept
Your upload is never changed - compare any time.
Each repair has its own strength, so a gentle touch on the paper and a full rebuild of a hole can sit on the same letter.
Damage removed completely while paper tone and ink weight match the rest of the page. The default, and right for most letters.
Print a clean, full-size copy to hang - and keep the fragile original safely stored.
Send every cousin a readable copy of the letter only one branch of the family has.
Add restored letters to a family album, memoir or genealogy record.
At an anniversary, a reunion or a memorial - without squinting at faded ink.
A clear page makes typing up the letter, or translating it, far easier.
Export a PDF and print as many as you need on good paper.
Handle the paper as little as possible - the scan is what gets repaired.
Don't force old creases flat or iron them - the scan is what gets repaired, not the paper.
Colour separates ink from stains; higher resolution keeps fine pen strokes.
A sheet of card behind airmail paper stops writing from the back showing through.
Scan them all - postmarks and addresses are part of the story too.
Leave tears as they are; mark them in the studio instead of adding new tape.
Store it flat in an acid-free sleeve once you have a restored copy to handle.
Auto-detect boxes folds, holes, stains and text. Mark all damage in one click.
Each area is cut out with enough of the letter around it to see the paper and the hand.
Fix fold line, Fill hole / tear, Remove stain, Sharpen faded ink - each area its own job.
The repair is colour-matched to the untouched paper, so there are no clean patches.
Areas are restored one after another. Outside them, the scan is original.
Compare & zoom
Slide between the letter as found and restored, and zoom in on every repair.
Multi-page letters
Restore every page and save the whole letter back as one PDF.
Print-ready export
Download PNG, JPG or PDF at full size for framing and printing.
Log in, open the AI Restore Studio and upload a scan or photo of the letter. Press Auto-detect - it's free - and then Mark all damage: fold lines, holes and stains become Restore areas, each with its own instruction. Draw a box round anything else, such as a faded paragraph, and tap Sharpen faded ink. Press Restore, compare with the original and download.
No. Only the areas you mark are restored, and the instruction is to repair the damage while keeping the writing. Faded strokes are strengthened along the lines that were actually written; fold lines and stains are lifted from around them. Everything outside your marked areas stays exactly as scanned.
Yes - fold creases are one of the most common things Recovoly repairs on letters. Mark each fold (Auto-detect usually finds them), set it to Restore with Fix fold line, and the crease is flattened and the broken letters along it are rejoined.
Mark the hole or tear and use Fill hole / tear. The missing paper is rebuilt to match, and letters that were lost through the hole are written back in the same hand, using the rest of the line as a guide. For large losses, try Rebuild strength and check the result closely.
Yes. Draw a box round the faded paragraph and choose Sharpen faded ink. Only that paragraph is darkened to match the rest of the letter - the parts that were fine are left alone.
Yes. Each area has a strength setting. Gentle makes the smallest change and keeps the aged character of the paper; Balanced fixes fully while keeping an authentic look; Rebuild reconstructs badly damaged areas. Many people use Gentle or Balanced for letters they want to frame.
Yes. The restoration works on ink and paper, not on vocabulary, so letters in any language - cursive, copperplate, Kurrent, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and more - can be restored.
Unfold it gently without forcing the creases flat, lay it face down on the glass, and scan in colour at 400-600 DPI. For thin airmail paper, put a sheet of black or white card behind it to stop writing from the other side showing through. A clear phone photo in soft daylight also works.
Yes. Upload each page and the envelope as images, or one multi-page PDF, and restore the pages that need it. Save the whole letter back as one PDF to keep it together.
Auto-detect is free. Each marked area costs 10 points from your Recovoly balance, so a letter with two fold lines, a hole, a stain and a faded paragraph costs 50 points. See the pricing page for plans.
It is never changed. Your upload is kept alongside every restored version, so you can always go back to it, compare, or restore again with different settings.
Yes. Your uploads and restorations are private to your account and are never published. You can delete them from your history at any time - see our privacy policy for details.
Restoring correspondence, diaries and personal records.
Make old handwriting and manuscripts readable.
Bring faded handwriting back to full strength.
Repair tears and rejoin torn pages.
Keep restored family papers organised and safe.
Mark any area and restore only that area.
Log in, upload the letter and see the folds, holes and faded ink repaired in minutes.
Auto-detect is free · 10 points per area · see pricing
