How to Schedule Emails to Be Sent at a Future Date or Time

Do you forget to send birthday greetings? Wish you could receive an email reminder of an upcoming event or project deadline? Have you written an email in anger and want a cooling off period before it's sent?

Well, I've recently discovered a free service that lets users to do all of these things and more by allowing you to write an email now and have it automatically sent at a later date or time. It's called Letter Me Later and not only is it free and easy to use, but you don't even have to create an account if you don't want to (although your message will have a generic return email address if you don't).

Scheduling an email to be sent in the future is just as easy as sending one from your regular e-mail account-

- Visit LetterMeLater.com and create an account-

-- This only requires your name, email address and password.

-- You will receive a confirmation email before your account is activated

- Click "Compose"

- Select your return email address (if you have more than one on file); fill in the To:, CC: and BCC: options (or select from your contacts); add Subject:; select format (text or HTML)

- Select date and time for email to be sent.

- Write message.

- Click Schedule.

That's all there is to it. Seriously. But LetterMeLater can do so much more as well...

This is a full featured email composing program allowing special formatting, HTML, even pictures to be included or sending attachments. Don't want to have to visit the website to schedule your emails? No problem you can even email their servers with your email and it will schedule and send it for you-

- Write your scheduled email in your normal email client exactly as you normally would (it can even be reply or a forward)

- Address the email to Me@LetterMeLater.com

- Include the recipient(s) and scheduled sending time at the top of the message. (This text will not be included in the scheduled email)

-- Options include - to: recipient(s); cc: recipient(s); bcc: recipient(s); when: date(s) to send - semicolon delimited for recurring emails

-- Only to: and when: are required

- You will immediately receive a response, indicating whether is was done successfully or not.

This is a great way to send birthday and anniversary greetings, remind yourself of upcoming events, remind your employees/family members of things you've asked them to do, create recurring reminder emails that will be sent every day/week/month/etc. I regularly use the service to schedule text messages to my daughter - I write them when I think of them and have them sent after school or when she'll be awake the next day.