How timedrop.it works, in plain terms.

Write your letter on timedrop.it, pick the unlock date and enter your own email as the recipient, then seal it. On that date we email you a private link that opens the letter. Sending takes a free account, which includes two letters a year.

We never read letters, and the system is built so that reading one takes more than our database. Your letter, photos and voice note are encrypted in your browser with AES-256 before upload, and each capsule’s key is sealed with a server key kept outside the database. timedrop.it is not zero-knowledge: our server can unseal a key, which it does to deliver on the date and when a recipient asks for an email copy.

We email the recipient a private link within minutes of the unlock time. Opening it decrypts the letter in their browser. If the link is not opened, we send a reminder after 24 hours and another after 72 hours.

No. Once a capsule is sealed its date is fixed, and the open link shows a countdown until then. The fixed date is what makes it a time capsule, so choose it before you seal.

From tomorrow up to ten years. Choose a preset such as one year or five years, or set an exact date, time and timezone.

Yes, for two letters a year. A free account includes two letters in any 12 months with every feature: photos, a voice note, private letters and dates up to ten years out. No card is needed. Extra letters are $3 each.

Yes. Any email address can be the recipient: your child, your partner, a friend or a whole class. You can add a backup address, so the letter still arrives if the main inbox is gone by then.

A private letter goes only to its recipient. A public letter reaches its recipient first, and on the unlock date a short anonymous excerpt also appears on the public wall. That excerpt is stored as readable text so the wall can show it.

Yes. Each letter can carry up to four photos and a voice note recorded in your browser. Both are encrypted on your device before upload, like the text.

The link goes to the recipient’s inbox, so choose an address that will outlast a job or a phone contract. Add a backup recipient before sealing and we email the link to both addresses.

Yes, in your account, until 24 hours before it is sent. After that it can no longer be deleted. The first deletion in any 12 months gives you 1 letter back.

One year after delivery, then it is deleted to protect your privacy. Until then the recipient can download it as a PDF with its photos, save the voice note as an audio file or email themselves a copy.

Yes, to send a letter. You can start writing first, and your draft stays saved while you create one. The account keeps your letters in one archive, lets you delete one until 24 hours before it is sent and includes two free letters a year. You sign in with Apple or Google, so there is no password to remember. Recipients open their letters without an account.

English, Spanish, German and Italian. A letter’s emails arrive in the language set in the sender’s account.

FutureMe emails a letter back to you, and every letter there now needs a paid plan. timedrop.it gives you two letters a year with a free account, adds photos and voice notes, encrypts letters in your browser and delivers to anyone you choose.

Extra letters are $3 each, paid once through Stripe. There is no subscription and the letters you buy never expire.