Expecting mail? USPS will show you what it looks like when it arrives

USPS mail photos

The US Postal Service wants to stay relevant with a new test feature that embraces emails and sends photos of your physical mailbox to your virtual one.

Called Informed Delivery, the new feature emails you up to 10 photos per day of the snail mail - unopened- waiting for you in your mailbox.

Any more than 10 envelopes, and you'll be able to see photos of them through an online dashboard in the same place where you can track packages.

Of course, you'll need to sign up for a My USPS account (which is free), though the new feature is only available to residential users, not businesses, and it currently only sends photos of just mail, not packages.

It's also only being rolled out to New York City metro areas and Connecticut, though it's expected to expand to other ares next year.

Email for your mail?

We're not entirely sure helpful such a feature will be to most users, especially as it won't include packages yet.

Still, it can be useful if you're traveling, waiting on important docs or are just too lazy to walk out to your mailbox.

The feature has been tested in parts of Virginia since 2014, though, according to Quartz, the US postal service admitted in 2013 that it's been photographing every letter and package mailed in the US since the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people.

The USPS claims photographing mail and packages helps the service sort mail, though it has also previously provided information to law-enforcement agencies in criminal cases, according to the report.