Informed Delivery is the single most underused free service USPS offers. In 2026, more than 60 million American households are enrolled and receive a daily digest — with images — of every letter and parcel arriving that day. If you're not one of them, you're paying for tracking numbers and phone alerts your postman would give you for nothing. Here's how to sign up, what to expect, and the tricks that most guides skip. ## What Informed Delivery actually is Informed Delivery is a free USPS service that emails (and pushes via mobile app) a preview of your incoming mail every morning between roughly 6 am and 9 am. The preview includes: - **Grayscale front-of-envelope images** for letter-sized mail piece scanned during automated processing. - **Package tracking status** for USPS parcels expected to your address that day, plus UPS/FedEx SmartPost handoffs. - **Estimated delivery dates** on any tracked USPS parcel to that address. - **Reschedule and hold options** without a separate login. Coverage is nationwide for residential addresses and about 80% of business addresses in eligible zip codes. ## How to sign up 1. Go to [informeddelivery.usps.com](https://informeddelivery.usps.com). 2. Enter your delivery address and check eligibility. 3. Create a usps.com account (or sign in). 4. Complete identity verification — usually online through a credit-record check, otherwise via a mailed activation code (takes 5–7 days) or an in-person verification at a participating post office. 5. Set your email or app preferences. Identity verification blocks a fair number of applicants on the first try — usually because the credit file doesn't match a recent address change. If online verification fails, request the mailed activation code and finish the process a week later. ## What you actually get in the daily digest Each morning the digest shows: - Up to 10 grayscale letter images (mail exceeding 10 pieces overflows to the app). - Every parcel that USPS's system predicts will be delivered *today*. - Any parcel scheduled for delivery in the next few days. - Buttons to schedule redelivery, put mail on hold, or leave delivery instructions. Package images (not just letters) show for select major shippers who share content photography with USPS — most notably Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. ## The privacy question The letter images are captured during mail processing anyway; Informed Delivery simply shares them with the addressee. USPS does not read or scan the inside of your mail. Third parties do not receive your image feed. Two real privacy concerns to know about: - **Household members share the digest.** If you don't want your partner or roommates to see certain letters (medical, financial, legal), have them addressed to a PO box. - **Fraud risk with identity theft.** In rare cases, criminals have attempted to enrol *other* addresses using stolen identity data. USPS added detection, and any suspicious enrolment triggers a mailed alert. Watch for such letters and report immediately. ## Best features most people miss - **Package redelivery scheduling** without a separate call. - **Hold mail up to 30 days** while travelling. - **Delivery instructions** ("leave in the covered porch") displayed to the carrier. - **PO Box scanning** — Informed Delivery works for PO boxes in eligible offices. - **Business Informed Delivery** — free service for small businesses to see incoming mail across up to 10 users. - **PostalOne! integration** — for high-volume shippers, letter images become a marketing surface via full-colour interactive campaigns. ## Common problems and fixes - **No images arriving.** Check that your address is eligible; some rural routes are not yet supported. Contact usps.com/help. - **Images arriving for a previous tenant.** Sign in and update your address on your profile; contact Informed Delivery support if the old data persists. - **Digest missing on random days.** USPS misses images when mail is diverted or processed at a facility that doesn't feed the imaging system. - **Package tracking not linked.** Only USPS-carried parcels appear automatically. UPS, FedEx, and DHL parcels do not — use their own apps. ## Bottom line Informed Delivery is the closest thing to a free daily concierge service the USPS operates. Enrol, add every household adult with their own USPS account, and let the digest replace tracking-number lookups on 80% of your mail. The whole setup takes under ten minutes.