How it works
The whole thing, explained
You write a letter and choose a date. We confirm your email address, lock the letter, and hold it. On the morning of that date it arrives in your inbox.
The limits
- How far ahead
- 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20 years — or any date you pick
- Letter length
- 20,000 characters, about eight pages
- Files
- 10 per capsule, 250 MB in total
- Photos
- up to 15 MB each
- Video
- up to 200 MB and 2 minutes each
- Other recipients
- up to 5
- Delivery time
- around 9am in the timezone you wrote it from
Questions people actually ask
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, no account, no upsell later. It costs us very little to hold a letter, and the file limits below are what keep it that way. If we ever have to charge for something new, capsules already sealed stay free.
Can I read it before it arrives?
No — not you, not us. Sealing is the whole ritual, and a letter you can revisit is just a draft. You can see when it is scheduled and who it is going to, and you can delete it. That is all.
What if I change email addresses?
Right now there is no way to update the address on a sealed capsule, which is the honest weak point of a service with no accounts. If you are about to lose an address, delete the capsule and write a new one from the address you will keep.
What happens to my photos and video?
They are stored privately, never publicly readable, and served through links that expire after an hour. They stay available until 90 days after your capsule is delivered — save them when it arrives. The letter text itself we keep indefinitely.
Can I send one to someone else?
Yes, up to 5 other people. They hear nothing until the day it lands. To keep that from being abused we confirm your own email first, every delivered capsule says plainly who wrote it and when, and the recipient can block you in one click.
What if the site does not exist in twenty years?
A fair question, and we will not pretend otherwise. The schedule lives in a database that runs independently of the website, and the email and storage providers can each be swapped without touching your capsule. If Time Capsule Mail ever has to close, we will tell everyone with an undelivered capsule and send their content back before the lights go out.