R
Show HN
Show HN: Web app that lets you send email time capsules
I had an issue where I would journal stuff, and then never look at what I wrote. So I thought it'll be cool to schedule something that will get sent to you at a later time (like a time capsule). Also, was inspired by futureme, where you can send yourself letters that'll arrive in the future.
  • Jach
  • ·
  • 23 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
This reminded me of a more whimsical old service that used real snails to send email at some indeterminate time. Looks like their home page is still up but it's totally defunct: http://www.realsnailmail.net/ The only message I sent with it (or at least that made it through, maybe I sent more that I don't remember) was initiated in June 2008, at last collected by a snail in May 2011, and the snail Marko delivered it in August 2011.
Classic net.art piece, thanks for bringing it up. The artists homepage: https://boredomresearch.net/
Wow that's such a delightful service, haha.
THIS IS GREAT! Thank you for showing me :D
I hear about time capsule apps from time to time and my main concern about them is longevity.

Will this application exist in say 10 years from now? 20? And even then will I be using the same email by then?

I've been occasionally using futureme.org since ~15 years ago, in case you're a believer in the Lindy effect. FWIW I don't think I've ever used it for anything more than ~1 year ahead, that always seemed fun/interesting enough. Of course there's other considerations entering the picture if you plan ten years ahead, but then again this seems like the kind of fun/light-hearted thing where it doesn't really bother me that I might not end up reading it again --- life happens...
Forget 10 years, will it exist in May?
This is very cool and makes me smile because I used to use a simplified version of this as a take home project in engineering interviews.

One usecase I find particularly interesting is predictions. People often predict the future like “in 2 years we will have AGI” etc. It would be fun to fact check these predictions on the exact date 2 years later. Pick top tech leaders or politicians and scrape all their predictions and make a leaderboard of who got it right or messed up. could be fun to try.

Oh that's a great use case! Never thought of that. Thanks!
Gmail has this feature built in, you can plan the sending of an email for a later point in time.
Yeah good point. I guess with Gmail you will see your scheduled emails (and ruin any surprises), whereas in Resurf it's deliberately hidden from you.
How do I know you'll last ten years if I schedule it out that far? I'd use Gmail's scheduled emails or make a calendar event and write the content I want in its description field.
  • munro
  • ·
  • 23 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
just use a calendar event, it's more robust, and gives you the same feeling of 'oh yea...'
  • dmd
  • ·
  • 23 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
Exactly. I give services like this - generally coded as someone's first "wow I know PHP now!" or the modern equivalent - approximately 5 years shelf life, at best.

Whereas I have notes-to-future-me on my calendar that I put there 30 years ago.

What calendar system have you been using for 30 years, that's survived that long?

I think I sent one of those "mails to the future" in the 90's, asking 2002 me how I am. I don't think it ever arrived, or the free email domain I was using ceased operating.

Sheesh, anyone old enough to remember the services offering a free email address with a choice of maybe 50 domains in a dropdown?

  • KomoD
  • ·
  • 20 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
> Sheesh, anyone old enough to remember the services offering a free email address with a choice of maybe 50 domains in a dropdown?

Mail.com is still around and offers a lot of domains, though I think the amount of domains has reduced over the years.

  • dmd
  • ·
  • 22 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
Not the same one all that time, but I've always exported/imported when I have changed.

For the same reason, I have every email I've ever sent or received, going back to my 1988 FIDOnet account.

  • _def
  • ·
  • 22 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
I don't get emails for my calendar events though (which is kinda important for my workflow, as my inbox is my task backlog)
I think Futureme "letters" are actually emails, no? Or at least they do both. I've sent my future self emails via Futureme (and they called it a "letter" on the email). Nevertheless, this is still cool, congrats OP!

I highly recommend people try this exercise. I got an email this year which I sent myself five years ago. It was tiny, and still mind-blowing.

Ah also note that the one thing that would put me off from using this service is actually trusting that you'll (you as in Resurf) still be around 10 years from now to deliver the email.
Yeah great point... It's kind of a catch-22, in that resurf has to be around for a long time, for people to think it will be around for a longer time still, haha.

Right now though, I set the maximum date in the future as one year from now, so should be able to guarantee that at least.

It is indeed!
You might like Diarium, a local-first journaling app that will bring up past entries a year later. Since journalling is private, not everyone is comfortable sharing with an email provider.
Good point on the privacy. I did think long and hard about this... and ultimately it's kind of hard to do privacy well with email. In-app push notifications are better in this regard, but I figured it's a lot harder to find users to try my app, and also, emails are very accessible. Diarium seems like a great app!
I had this journaling notebook: https://www.leuchtturm1917.us/some-lines-a-day.html , but at year 5 I lost the motivation...
Very cool, I was already doing that by emailing things to myself onGmail and Snoozing to a future date. Muche better than calendar events for things like clean gutters.
Fun idea and nice design. How does it work?
Hey, well you just write down something, and select when you would want that sent back to you. That's the gist of it anyways!