Informed Delivery from the Post Office

The  U.S. Postal Service is offering a new feature that some will find useful and some will find useless. Starting 14 April 2017, the USPS rolled out Informed Delivery to the majority of residential addresses in the United States.

Sign up for the free service and you’ll get an email from the Postal Service before 11:00 a.m. EST that shows you a scanned photo of all the first-class mail (up to 10 pieces) you’ll receive that day. Exusps-logopecting a bill or a package? You can see from your work desk computer whether or not it has arrived in your daily mail at home. Your mail is never opened and the photo only shows the outside of the envelope with the address face up. Since the Post Office has been scanning all incoming mail since the anthrax attack of 2001, there is no additional cost for the service.

There is a small problem with the system, however. If you register as John Smith, the email you’ll get will show mail addressed to John Smith or John and Mary Smith or Mary Smith. So, John’s email will show all the first class mail coming to the house regardless of the actual addressee.  In other words the service shows incoming household mail, not individual mail. Privacy issues may be an issue for some.

You can register for the service here.