Write a handwritten letter before a deployment begins — from a service member to their family, or a family member to their service member. We'll deliver it on a date you choose: homecoming, an anniversary, or any day that will matter.
Deployments rearrange time. The person leaving is about to live a year that nobody at home can fully picture. The family at home is about to live a year the service member can barely imagine. Both versions happen in parallel, and both are real, and when the two timelines meet again at the end of the deployment, neither person is quite who they were when they parted. The gap between goodbye and hello is the hardest part of military life to describe to anyone who hasn't lived it.
A letter written before the deployment begins — from the service member to their family, or from the family to the person shipping out — bridges that gap. You write it in the weeks before departure, while the feelings are at their most intense. You say everything you won't have a chance to say in the middle of a deployment. You write for the version of them who will be landing back home. You mail it in, we hold it, and we deliver it on whatever date you choose.
Homecoming day is the most common choice. A letter in the mailbox the week they come back — written a year ago, before either of you knew how the deployment would go — becomes one of the most emotional pieces of mail a military family ever receives. Others pick a child's birthday during the deployment, a wedding anniversary, or the flight-home week. However you use it, the letter becomes family history: physical proof that even separated by an ocean, you were thinking of each other on this exact day in these exact words.
Three simple steps. One beautiful moment, later.
Pour your heart onto paper. Use our Letter Helper if you'd like prompts. You decide when it should be opened — 1 year or 2 years from now.
Mail your sealed letter to our PO Box. We store it in a climate-controlled, fireproof safe — untouched, unopened, waiting.
On your chosen date, we mail your original, handwritten letter with tracking. Your words arrive exactly when they're meant to.
Your letter is in safe hands
You're trusting us with something irreplaceable. Here's what we do about that.
Letters are stored in climate-controlled, fireproof safes — not filing cabinets or cardboard boxes. We treat every letter as irreplaceable, because to someone, it is.
Every letter ships with an active tracking number, so you (or the recipient) know exactly when it's on its way.
If your address changes before your delivery date, email us anytime and we'll update your file. Your letter follows you — no extra fee.
If Hold My Letter ever closes, every stored letter is immediately mailed back to the sender's return address. No exceptions.
One letter. One delivery. One beautiful moment when it returns.
Emailed on your chosen date between 6 months and 2 years out. Add physical mailing for a small fee. Available worldwide — the right choice if you're writing to (or from) outside the United States.
One-time payment
+$12 to add physical mailing (first address)
One-time payment
+$12 to add physical mailing (first address)
Physical mailing add-on: +$12 for the first address. Each additional unique address: +$2.
The original Hold My Letter experience. Handwrite your letter, seal the envelope, and mail it to our PO Box. We store it in a climate-controlled, fireproof safe until your chosen delivery date — then send it back with tracking, still sealed.
One-time payment
One-time payment
🇺🇸 Currently available for US addresses only. International shipping coming soon!
Everything you need to know, answered plainly.
It only takes 20 minutes. The moment it lands will be worth years.
12 chapters. Age-by-age writing scripts. Read on the site.