Check-ins and safety steps
How often we check in, how to answer, how to pause, and what each safety step does before any letter can be sent.
3 minutes to read
Answer a check-in
When your rhythm comes round, we email you a check-in. Press I'm here in the email and you are done until the next one. You can also press I'm here at the top of your page at any time, which starts a fresh rhythm from that moment.
Signing in to FuturePostman counts too: a sign-in after your last check-in tells us you are there.
The safety steps
Under When, press Adjust the safety steps to see them. Each rhythm comes with recommended values. Use recommended puts them back.
- Time to answer the check-in
- How long we wait for your answer before reminders start.
- Reminder period
- How long reminders go on, by email and text message.
- Reminders
- How many reminders are sent in that period. Each goes by email and text message, or only by email if you chose email only.
- Phone calls
- Calls a few hours apart with a short rhythm, and at least 20 hours apart from two weeks on, always inside your phone hours. Press 1 during a call to check in. With email only, there are no calls.
- Trusted people who must confirm
- How many of your trusted people must say that you cannot answer. Zero skips this step.
- Final waiting period
- Last warnings on every channel. One press tells us you are fine, and your plan carries on as before.
A value weaker than recommended shows a warning that says what it risks. Tick I understand under each warning to save it. Some values have a floor that nobody can go below.
Email only
If calls and text messages cannot reach your country, or you have no mobile phone you can use, choose Continue with email only under How we reach you. Then there are no text messages and no calls. Your check-ins, reminders and final warnings all come by email. The waits stay just as long, and every other safety step stays the same. Use a phone after all turns it off.
Only once, for a trip
Under When, choose what happens after you answer a check-in. Keep checking in is the usual: we ask again on the same rhythm, for as long as your pass lasts. Only once is for a trip or a short time away: when you answer the check-in, your plan ends. Your letters are kept, and nothing is sent.
Home early? Press I'm back: end the plan now at the top of your plan. Nothing is sent and nothing is deleted, and any time left on your pass stays with the plan. To use it again later, press Set up this plan again.
Pause check-ins
Going somewhere without signal, or into hospital? Press Pause check-ins, choose how long under Pause for, up to 90 days, and press Pause. We do not ask you to check in until the pause ends, and your letters stay sealed. Resume now ends a pause early.
If a message cannot reach you
If a text is not delivered or a call fails, the plan stops there and does not go on by itself. A broken number cannot release your letters.
If we are down for a while, every running deadline moves later by the length of the outage.
- How If I'm Not Back worksLetters for the people you love, kept sealed and private while you answer our check-ins, and sent only once every safety step has passed.
- Trusted peopleThe people we ask before your letters are sent, if you add any: what they get from us, how they answer, and why one answer that you are fine stops the steps.