What your recipient sees and how they open the letter

An email letter never travels by email. On the delivery day each recipient gets a short notice email with a private link and an access code, and reads the letter on a FuturePostman page. No account is needed for that.

This article follows the recipient from the notice to the files. If you are the recipient, the steps are written for you.

Open a letter in four steps

1. 01

   Find the notice email

   Its subject is "You have received a message from the past". It comes from a FuturePostman address, not from the address of the sender. Look in the spam folder if you cannot find it.

2. 02

   Follow the link

   Press Open your letter in the email. If the button does nothing, copy the address printed further down in the email into your browser, complete and unchanged.

3. 03

   Unlock the letter

   Enter Your email address, which is the address the notice was sent to, and the Access code from the email. Then press Open the letter.

4. 04

   Read it and keep what you want

   The letter opens with its files below it. Save what you want to keep before the link expires.

Stuck? Go straight to If it does not open.

The notice email

The notice is written in English. It shows:

• From: the name of the sender, as it stands in their profile. If the letter was sent anonymously it says Anonymous Sender. The email address of the sender is not in the notice
• To: the address of this one recipient
• Date: the date the sender put on the letter, or else the day of delivery
• The Open your letter button, and the same link once more as text
• Your access code
• Link expires: the last day and time the link works, given in UTC
• Attached files: the name and size of each file, if the letter has files

The notice does not contain the subject of the letter, its text or the files themselves. Those stay on FuturePostman until the letter is unlocked.

Every recipient gets a notice of their own, with their own link and their own access code. That is also true for the addresses in Cc and Bcc. No recipient sees who else received the letter.

Unlock the letter

Your email address

The address the notice was sent to. It is printed after To in the notice. Capital and small letters do not matter. If your mail is forwarded from another address, use the address the sender wrote to.

Access code

The code under Your access code in the notice, exactly as printed. Capital and small letters matter. Copy and paste it to be safe. The eye button shows what you have typed.

Below the form the page says until which day the letter can be opened.

Only wrong tries are counted, and they are counted for each email address on its own. After 3 wrong tries with one address, the letter is locked for that address for 15 minutes. The right address with the right code is never counted, so a recipient who mistypes does not lock out the others. A wider limit stops guessing: 30 wrong tries on one letter from one network address, whatever email address was typed, lock the letter there for 15 minutes.

Read the letter

The opened letter shows:

• From: the name of the sender with their email address under it. For a letter sent anonymously it says "Someone who stays anonymous" and no address is shown
• Written: the day and time the sender wrote and scheduled the letter
• Date on the letter: the date the sender put on the letter. It is shown only when the sender set one
• To: the address you unlocked the letter with
• The subject and the text of the letter
• At the bottom: until when the letter can be opened and how much time is left, and the About this letter link
• Under the letter: the link Report this letter and the reference of the letter

There is no reply button, and an answer to the notice email does not reach the sender. To answer, write to the sender yourself. That is only possible when their address is shown.

When the first recipient opens the letter, its status for the sender changes to Viewed. See What the status of an email letter means.

View and download the files

Files are listed under Attachments, each with its type and size.

View

Opens the file on the page without saving it. This works for pictures, videos, audio recordings, PDF files and plain text files.

Download

Saves one file to your device.

Download all

Saves the files together as one ZIP file. The button appears when more than one file can be downloaded.

The sender decides whether the files can be viewed, downloaded or both. A file marked View only has no download button. A file that a browser cannot show is always offered as a download. The sender sets this, and the download limit, in the file sharing settings.

Download limits

• The sender can limit how often each recipient may download a file. The file then shows how many downloads are left
• The limit is counted for each recipient separately. One recipient cannot use up the downloads of another
• Viewing or playing a file on the page does not use up a download, and a download that broke off is given back
• Download all uses one download of every file in the ZIP. Files with no downloads left and view only files are left out of it
• When the downloads of a file are used up, Limit reached takes the place of Download. A file with a View button can still be viewed or played, and the letter can still be read, until the link expires
• The sender can raise the limit of a file afterwards. If you need another download, ask the sender

The letter closes by itself

An unlocked letter stays open for about 30 minutes. After that the page asks for the email address and the access code again and says For your safety the letter closed itself after a while. Open it again to continue.

Nothing is used up by this. Until the link expires the letter can be unlocked again and again, with the same link and the same code.

When the link expires

The sender chooses how long the link stays open, counted from the moment of delivery. The notice email, the unlock page and the opened letter all show the last moment. After it the page says This letter can no longer be opened, and the files are closed as well.

Only the sender can help then. The sender opens the letter in Manage Letters and presses Extend link. That works for a letter with files and for one without, and the same link and code then work again. Extend the time has the steps.

If it does not open

The notice never arrived, or it is lost

• Look in the spam folder first, and search your mailbox for the subject "You have received a message from the past"
• Then ask the sender. In Manage Letters the sender sees whether the letter was delivered and can check the address letter by letter
• The sender can mail you the notice once more with Send the notice again. You get a new email with a new link and a new access code. The earlier email keeps working too. Send the notice again has the steps for the sender

Ask FuturePostman support

The unlock page says Trouble opening it? Contact FuturePostman support. Every page that cannot open a letter has the same link to support, and so does About this letter. Under it stands the reference of the letter, the word Reference with a short code that starts with FP-. The link opens the contact form with that reference already filled in. The reference only names the letter. It opens nothing, so it is safe to pass on. Never send your access code to anyone.

Support cannot open a letter for you and cannot give you the access code. What it can do is described in Contact FuturePostman support. More help is in Troubleshooting.

Report a letter

If a letter is abusive, or you should not have received it, press Report this letter under the opened letter. The contact form opens in a new tab with the reference of the letter filled in and A problem chosen as the reason. Say in your own words what is wrong and send it. This works for anonymous letters too: the sender is hidden from you, not from FuturePostman.

The About this letter dialog

About this letter, at the bottom of the opened letter, is a short explanation for the recipient. It says how the letter is kept safe, shows under Open until the last moment the link works, names the three ways to keep the files, and links to FuturePostman support with the reference of the letter.

• How your letters are protectedWhat FuturePostman encrypts, how a recipient proves who they are, when a link stops working, what staff can see and where the protection ends.
• Control how recipients open your filesDecide whether the files of a letter can be viewed online, downloaded or both, how often and for how long. Then follow, extend or delete them on the Files page.
• What the status of an email letter meansEvery status an email letter can show in Manage Letters, what happens behind it, and what you can still do with the letter in each one.
• Fix a problem with a letter, a payment or your accountFind what you see on screen, then read what it means and what to do: failed letters, links that do not open, refused files, credits, payments and sign-in.