How to Sign Up for USPS Informed Delivery

What Informed Delivery actually is

Informed Delivery is a free service from the US Postal Service. Every morning, on the mail days you get delivery, USPS emails you a daily digest. The digest includes grayscale photos of the front of every letter-sized piece of mail heading to your mailbox that day.

It's been around since 2017. USPS built it as a modern perk for the post office — a way to let people see their mail from anywhere. If you've ever wondered "did my check from the IRS arrive yet?" from a hotel room, this is the answer.

The service is completely free. USPS doesn't charge you anything, and there's no catch. You don't need a credit card. You do need to verify your identity, because USPS wants to make sure you actually live at the address you're getting mail for.

Who can sign up

Informed Delivery works for three kinds of addresses:

• Residential addresses. The most common case. Your home.
• Business addresses. If you run a business at a commercial address, you can sign up with a USPS.com business account. Same daily photos.
• PO Boxes. Also supported through a USPS.com business account. Especially handy if you rarely drive to the box.

One catch: your mailbox needs to be "uniquely coded" by USPS. Most addresses are. Some apartment buildings and condos aren't, which means the mail carrier scans every piece for the whole building as one route. If yours isn't uniquely coded, the signup page will tell you, and USPS will let you get on a waiting list.

Single-family homes almost always work. Apartments are hit or miss. The only way to know for sure is to try the signup and see.

What you need before you start

• An email address where you want the daily previews delivered.
• The address you get mail at (home or business).
• About 3 minutes.

That's it. You don't need to scan any documents, mail anything in, or drive anywhere. The whole thing happens online.

1. Go to informeddelivery.usps.com

Open informeddelivery.usps.com in your browser. You'll see a page with a big blue button that says "Sign Up For Free." Click it.

If you already have a USPS.com account from tracking packages or buying stamps, you can use that same login. USPS will ask you to sign in partway through. Either way, the signup flow is the same from here.

2. Enter your address

USPS asks for the address where you get your mail. Type it in the way it's written on an envelope — street number, street name, apartment number if you have one, city, state, ZIP.

USPS then checks whether your address is eligible for Informed Delivery. One of three things happens:

• Eligible: you get a green checkmark and USPS sends you to the next step. This is the usual case.
• Not eligible: your mailbox isn't uniquely coded (common in some apartment buildings). USPS will offer to put you on a waiting list.
• Already taken: someone at your address already has Informed Delivery. USPS will let you request access.

If you hit "not eligible," that's frustrating — but there's nothing we can do about it from the outside. USPS decides which addresses work.

3. Create your USPS.com account

Next, USPS asks you to create an account. This is a regular USPS.com account — the same kind you'd use to track a package or buy stamps online. Pick a username, a password, and answer a couple of security questions.

If you're signing up for a business address or a PO Box, choose "Business Account" instead of "Personal Account" on this screen. The flow is the same from here on, but the account type is different.

4. Verify your identity

This is the part people get stuck on, so pay attention. USPS needs to make sure you actually live at the address you're signing up for — they don't want people reading other people's mail.

USPS uses a service called TransUnion to check your identity online. TransUnion asks you a few questions only you would know — stuff like "which of these streets have you lived on?" or "which of these loan amounts matches a recent mortgage?"

There are three possible outcomes:

• You pass online. Most people do. TransUnion confirms you, and you move straight to the next step. Takes 30 seconds.
• TransUnion can't verify you. USPS offers to mail you a verification code. It arrives in a regular envelope in 3 to 10 business days. When it arrives, you enter the code on the USPS site and you're in. Not ideal, but it works.
• You prefer to verify in person. You can go to any Post Office with a photo ID and verify there. Some people pick this route for privacy.

If you've frozen your credit (smart move), TransUnion may not be able to verify you online. You'll need to use the mailed code or go to a Post Office. Don't unfreeze your credit just to sign up for Informed Delivery — it's not worth it.

5. Confirm your email and you're done

USPS sends a confirmation email to the address you signed up with. Click the link in it to activate your account.

Then you wait. USPS usually starts sending daily previews within 1 to 3 business days — sometimes the same day if you sign up in the morning. The first few days might feel slow. That's normal.

Once the daily emails start, you'll get one every morning that mail is delivered. Sunday and federal holidays are skipped. The email is from USPSInformeddelivery@email.informeddelivery.usps.com with the subject line "Your Daily Digest for [today's date]."

Common problems and fixes