Sign up for USPS Informed Delivery
You see a picture of each letter before it arrives, so a stolen or missing letter stands out.
This is free. You don't need Free My ID to do it.
Printing this for someone? Press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on a Mac).
- Cost
- Free.
- Time
- About 15 minutes.
- Official site
- usps.com
What to have ready
- Your home address
- An email address
- A phone that can get a code
- A photo ID if USPS asks you to prove who you are at a post office
Step by step
- Open the USPS Informed Delivery page above and sign in, or make a free USPS.com account.
- Enter your address. USPS checks your mailbox is eligible (some apartment buildings are not).
- Prove it is you online. If that fails, you can visit a post office that offers identity checks.
- Check your email each morning for the daily list of letters.
- If a letter in the picture never arrives, tell your post office.
Opens usps.com, the official website.
Good to know
- The pictures show only the address side of letter-sized mail, plus some catalogs and magazines.
How to undo it
The USPS page does not explain cancelling. Look in your USPS.com account settings for Informed Delivery, or use USPS Online Support from the dashboard.
Sources
We checked these steps on November 7, 2026 against:
Companies change their pages often. If something looks different, follow what the official page says.
See all the free steps to protect yourself
Steps from the Free My ID checklists, version 2026.11.07.2 (CC BY-NC 4.0).