USPS rolled out a new service called Informed Delivery which sends out a daily digest via email of everything that came in the mail that day. For a lot of people, Informed Delivery is only marginally interesting, but for travelers and those with P.O. Boxes or multiple addresses it’s a game-changer. A lot of people find it useful for added verification that all their mail made it to their address and didn’t get lost somewhere in transit.
Signup for Informed Delivery Here / FAQ
The free service started a few years ago in targeted areas as part of a pilot program, and has recently been launched for most/all people nationwide. Early each morning you’ll get an email with pictures of the all mail that will come today to your mailbox. They don’t open your mail, it’s just an exterior scan which they take regardless for security purposes. It will also give notification of any USPS packages that came in the mail (without photos). Packages will even show up in advance in your USPS login; though the daily email will only show packages the day they are delivered.
Here’s a sample email:
An interesting thing is that USPS pays to advertise Informed Delivery in Google search. Unclear how they profit from it; looks like (pdf) they may be using it to lure businesses to send things via USPS.
I have a P.O. Box mailing address and it’s super helpful to know what came and whether I need to stop by the post office. I also like that they send pictures in the actual email; you don’t have to go the extra step and login to see them.
For most people, signing up for USPS Informed Delivery just takes two minutes. However, something didn’t go through for me in the online identity verification from USPS, and the system prompted me to go to a USPS branch with ID to get it set up. It wasn’t easy since the forms of address verification include a driver’s license, mortgage, lease, deed, voter or vehicle registration, home or vehicle insurance policy. These are all things that usually use a home address, effectively ruling out most PO Box users from Informed Delivery. The workaround I used was to switch my insurance mailing address to the PO Box and then generate an official insurance letter with the POB address.
Informed Delivery should be something popular among travelers. Frequentmiler notes that you’ll even get an email with pictures when your mail is on hold with USPS. There’s also a similar service to find out about UPS packages with UPS MyChoice and with FedEx it’s FedEx Delivery Manager. (HT r/churning).
Let us know your own experiences with Informed Delivery in the comments.
Informed delivery has a new feature: USPS Mail Delivery Notification!
Chuck
You can signup to get an email when your mail is delivered. No datapoints if it’s delayed, as I just signed up yesterday, but it worked. 🙂
Per the email they sent me:
Signing up is simple:
Fine print: This feature is offered at no cost and only requires an active Informed Delivery account in an eligible ZIP Codeâ„¢ location.
Going to save me so many trips to the mailbox and finding “he hasn’t come through yet”.
I’ve had it for years too but it’s very possible that it wasn’t available in all areas and is new to some.
I think that you hit the nail on the head as I’ve never had this feature available to me and I still don’t.
I’m just curious, did you start having the feature that I mentioned in the comment below the same time that I did or did you also have that available for a long time?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/usps-informed-delivery-review-get-pictures-of-your-mail-via-email/#comment-1848944
Yeah, I have had Informed Delivery for years…
But, this is specifically to alert you to when the mail is delivered… like put in your mailbox or mail slot.
I have to walk to a mailbox… so it’s nice to know when it arrives.
Frey 
midas89
Interesting. Maybe it’s just new here then.
Email subj: Your Mail Was Delivered Sat, Jun 01
I signed up in 2017.
Why would you apologize when your initial reply was extremely clear (to me at least)?
And, I just looked and verified the USPS email sent to me yesterday inviting me to sign up said it was new…
“Hello Informed Delivery Customer,
We have exciting news!
You are eligible to sign up for USPS Informed Delivery® Mail Delivery Notification emails. With this new feature, you will receive an email notifying you when your mail has been delivered.”
Figures that the USPS wouldn’t include details that others have had this for years.
midas89
When I signed up years ago I checked the notification boxes online to tell USPS I want a notification when my mail is delivered into my mailbox, and for all those years I received those notifications…and still do
I promise you I have gotten delivery notification emails from the USPS automatically at 3 separate addresses I have. Again, I am confused as to why USPS is calling this delivery notification feature new. As user Frey said above, maybe it’s just a new feature now available for some people who may not have had it before? Or, maybe USPS just made a mistake and called it new?
No worries. I believe you. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t misread what the USPS sent me. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there. It happens. 🙂
I get a lot of mail where they say that can’t take a picture of it.
Impressive feature though I have porch delivery. I doubt it will work in my area though. My neighbors and I have weekly meetings to exchange the misdelivered mail 🙂
Though I imagine it could be notification it was delivered to someone’s mailbox.
We have a Ring camera, but my mailbox is far enough away where it’s not triggered unless its a porch package.
Celia 🔗
Yeah, overall I really like the USPS, but yes, occasionally my mail gets dropped in the wrong box. Sometimes having more information and able to see pictures of what your missing is worrisome. They say “Ignorance is bliss”. IIRC, you cannot report it lost for a week.
It’s pretty easy to sign into the USPS sign to check for the option.
This failed today. Got the email it was delivered so I went to the mailboxes and the mail person said they aren’t done and can’t get my mail.
Informed Delivery has a new feature today in the emails showing the total # of mailings and packages arriving.
So obviously this is an old thread, but I wanted to mention that I have started being able to see the following day’s mail when I look after 7pm or so (maybe earlier, I haven’t checked). I wonder if this is related to the new USPS service slowdowns, since I would have hoped that mail could have been processed overnight and still get delivered the next day. They got rid of the dedicated Informed Delivery app a while ago and now make you use the crappy USPS app which merely takes you to the website to view your mail, So I set up a shortcut to go to that site and use it instead of the app. The only good thing is that you can expand the view of the mail on the website, which you could not do in the app.
I do still get the email in the morning with scans of the mail, but it never has ail that I haven’t seen the night before.
Here is a question – I signed up for Informed Delivery at my old primary residence that’s now been converted to a rental. I still get the emails once in a while and can see the tenants mail pieces. I’m wondering if there are any privacy laws against that? I can’t read the mail, just see the outside as anybody could. I felt icky about it for a while until recently I opened one and saw a person who is not my tenant but registered a business to the property! So I definitely found use and reason to track what all is going there. Since it’s my property, I’m thinking it shouldn’t be a problem to see what mail comes to it?
This service is useful to apartment residents, who may not need/want to check their mail daily (but like to collect parcels as soon as possible).
Informed Delivery just plain doesn’t work. The USPS is outmoded and has been for a long time. Their website doesn’t work, you wait forever to get someone on the phone, their phone system is antiquated and overall if they went out of business no big deal. In short, their are an antique.
There’s a ridiculous amount of mail I don’t receive. I report it in the Informed Delivery account – who knows what good that does. But this time I’m missing serious stuff like cards and account access numbers. I feel I have to go nuclear this time. Who at USPS do I need to contact so that this is investigated, and someone faces serious consequences. It’s gone too far this time. The missing stuff could cost me some bank bonuses, so big bucks. (I know I should contact the banks too.) I don’t know if it’s malfeasance or incompetence. In the past the missing stuff was random, and luckily the important stuff got through, but this time the important stuff is missing, costing me big time, so if it’s deliberate, somebody needs to go to jail.
What to do if a piece of mail was pictured for today’s mail and 2 days later still hasn’t arrived?
Lisa, that same thing has happened to me. Reporting it to them via the USPS Informed Delivery website won’t do any good except maybe if a huge amount of people are reporting their mail isn’t being delivered, perhaps the USPS will want to investigate why. Regarding your specific mail piece that is 2 days late: All you can do is just wait it out. If you’re lucky, it will show up eventually. My mail piece eventually arrived, but not until a week letter. It looked like it had been bent, so I am guess it got stuck somewhere in the machinery, or scrunched in a corner. (One more thing: Your mail piece could have also been mis-delivered to the wrong address or PO Box. Sadly, mis-delivered mail is a problem in my area. Luckily, most people will recognize the mis-delivered piece and re-mail it.)
I find Informed Delivery works pretty well. It tells me what I *should* be receiving. A lot of it I never actually receive, and I’ve found that if I don’t receive it the same day, then I won’t receive it at all. So you shouldn’t wait to report missing mail. In any case USPS Informed Delivery has been fantastically successful in informing me that USPS is abysmally failing to deliver a whole bunch of my mail.
Also, the maximum amount of time you can wait to report missing mail is 6 days, because the website (which you have to use to do the reporting) only displays 7 days of mail. The emails make it sound like you should wait AT LEAST 7 days to report, but if you do that, you’ll find oh hey, now you CAN’T report anymore. (I found that out the hard way the first time I had something go missing, lol.)
Exactly! There’s a limited time window to report, and they try to trick you into waiting until it’s too late.
I received an email mon saying that a letter I need was to be delivered that day and have yet to receive it. What’s the point of informed delivery if it’s not accurate.
Sarah, it’s not a perfect system at all. But for me personally, it works successfully the vast majority of times. In the email from Informed Delivery, they write in small print at the bottom that just because the mail piece was scanned that morning does not guarantee delivery that same day.
Most of the time I do get the scanned mail pieces the same day as the email notice, but there have been times when I have not, including one mail piece this morning.
Keep in mind that the scan often does not take place at one’s local post office. Instead, it is at a sorting center close by.