Sending email after you die
You can arrange for messages, files, and instructions to reach specific people when you can no longer send them yourself. Here is how the mechanics actually work, and what to decide before you set it up.
How the delivery works
The short version: you write it, you arm it, and it goes if you stop checking in. The longer version matters more, because a few of the details are deliberate and worth understanding before you rely on them.
- You write a letter, name the people who should receive it, and attach any files.
- You arm it. Until you arm it, nothing is scheduled to send.
- You check in on a schedule. Reminders escalate as the deadline approaches, then a grace period runs, then a last notice.
- If the window closes and grace ends, each named person gets their own private link.
- The link leads to the letter and any attached files. It expires after 90 days, and you can revoke it before it is opened.
Why a link and not the letter itself
The message does not arrive with the letter inside it. Each person receives a notification with a link, and the link is what opens the letter.
- It can be stopped. An unread link can be revoked. A letter already sitting in an inbox cannot.
- It expires. A link that leads nowhere after 90 days is better than a document that exists forever on a mail server.
- Files come with it. Anything in the vault attached to that letter is downloadable from the same link.
What the recipient is told
The notification says you asked for this to be sent because you did not check in, or because a date you chose arrived. It does not say you died, because the service has no way to know that.
This is a deliberate limitation rather than a nicety. A missed check-in could be a hospital stay, a dead phone, or a decision to stop using the service. The wording reflects what is actually known.
Decisions worth making before you arm it
- Loose or scheduled. Send when you go quiet, on a date you choose, or both. A birthday message years from now is the scheduled case; a letter for a general bad outcome is the loose one.
- How long the interval is. Longer is safer. A month of silence costs you nothing and gives you time to notice the reminders before anything sends.
- Whether each person sees the same letter. Each recipient gets their own copy of whatever you wrote for them. There is no group thread and no shared reply, so nobody learns who else received something.
- What you would want to stop. Decide now what would make you call the whole thing off, and how you would reach the service to do it.
What you should not send this way
Passwords, seed phrases, and account credentials belong somewhere else, for the reasons set out in the crypto and passwords guide. Letters here are protected by access control rather than end to end encryption, so treat them as instructions rather than as a place to keep a secret.
Instructions for accessing something you already secured properly are a good fit. The key itself is not.
Starting
- Write one letter to one person before you write to anyone else. It is easier to find your own tone with a single reader in mind.
- Send a test to yourself first, so you have seen exactly what a recipient will see.
- Then add the rest, and pick an interval you can comfortably keep.
Last updated: 2026-10-19