FAQs about FutureMe

What is this, exactly???

Way back in 2002, we had a crazy idea that it would be fun to get a surprise letter from the past. So we spent a couple weekends making FutureMe. Here's what the original version of FutureMe looked like!. We told some friends...who told some of their friends...and so on...and now many, many millions of letters have been written to the future. Some of these letters have been delivered from the past, and many more are still time traveling into the future.

Why should I write a letter to the future?

Thinking about and writing to the future - your future - is a powerful exercise. Check out all the people who agree!

So take some time to reflect on what you think - and want - the future to bring in a year, five years, ten years...more? You can use FutureMe to imagine your dreams. Or make a prediction about your life, or the world at large. Maybe write a resolution for a new year. You could even write a letter to your future self as a form of therapy!

Also - do you know what's even better than writing a letter to the future? Getting a surprise letter from the past. But you'll have to trust us (and futureme fans) on that...until the future arrives and you get your first letter and can see for yourself!

Will this random web-site still be around in the future?

Yup! We are very good at delivering letters from the past - we've being doing it for almost twenty years! We run FutureMe in a financially prudent manner (thanks to many of you who ) to ensure that we will continue to stick around. (Side note: thinking about the future of FutureMe is very...meta... 🤔)

Wait, but what if my email changes?

You should use an email address that you plan to keep for a long time (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc) rather than your work address for that job you hate or the school you're about to graduate from. But you can also create a FutureMe account, and then, if need be, you can change the email for your future letters from your FutureMe Account. And you can also always sign into FutureMe to read your letters that have previously been delivered from the past.

How much does it cost to use FutureMe?

FutureMe is free for basic use. But we would be honored if you would consider becoming a Premium Member because FutureMe requires money and time to ensure the delivery of your letters all the way into the future. Premium Members also get extra features, including the removal of all advertising, the ability to add pictures to your letters, and to ask for our support team to help you find any long lost letters.

"Public, but anonymous"? What's the deal with that?

If you designate your email as "public, but anonymous", it will be included in the public letters section. There are some amazing stories from the past that our community has shared. Your email address will never be shown or shared, but the body and the subject of the letter will be. Please refrain from mentioning specific people in a public letter (and if you do, we reserve the right to delete your letter. Read our terms and conditions of use for more details.

I think I wrote a letter a few years ago - can you help me with it?

Once you are a registered user you can always see your delivered letters in your FutureMe account. But you cannot read letters that have not been delivered yet since, ya know, the future hasn't arrived yet. Due to the volume of letters written on FutureMe we can only help find letters in the proverbial haystack for premium members. Once you are a member and want help finding a letter, please send a support request through the contact link below.

Can I FutureMe (verb!) other people?

You can send letters to others, but only if you are a registered user and signed in to FutureMe. When you write a letter while signed in, this other person will not get a confirmation email - they will be completely surprised in the future when they get the letter! The future letter will specify that it was sent from your email address, and you will also get a copy of the letter.

Can I create my own custom version of FutureMe?

Cool idea! This is why we created FutureMe Pro. Teachers, counselors, organizations, nonprofits, brands, etc can create and share a *custom* version of FutureMe with their community. Your letter writers can use your site for free, without advertising, and you can either share your custom version of FutureMe directly or embed it in your own web-site. And as the page owner, you can keep track of who is writing letters and even curate and share the best ones.

Can I advertise my brand on FutureMe?

If you are interested in exposing your brand to millions of FutureMe users, we are open to collaborating on a creative co-branded experience. If you want to discuss more please drop us a line by following the link below and we'll invite you to our yacht to talk business. Except we don't have a yacht, so it might just have to be a call.

I wrote my letter in a non-English language a long time ago and it came all scrambled. Why do you Americans hate people from other countries?

Yeah...sorry about that. It's a long story having to do with (nerd talk!) the default language encodings of databases not quite being "international-friendly" back in 2002 when we set this up. But now we have everything right so all future letters will be readable from whereever you are. There are web-sites that might let you convert your old letters into the language of your choice. you can read more about that at Wikipedia (scroll down for some links to converter sites). Here is a good side for converting Asian characters and here's one for Cyrillic. Some users (thanks Abdulla!) have reported that they can recover their letters if they save the text in Notepad as Unicode and not Ansi, and then open in Word with Arabic encoding.