Time capsules
A letter that opens in ten years' time
A time capsule is a letter with photos that opens only on a day you choose. To yourself in a year, to Paul on your anniversary, to Mia on her 18th birthday. Until then it waits, closed, on your own server, and on the morning it opens a message arrives on the phone.
A letter for later, beside the diary
Time capsules have their own place in the menu, “Time capsules”, and are not tied to any day of the diary. You write a letter with a heading and some text, add photos, choose who it is for and when it should open, and press “Seal”. From then on it waits.
What the page shows
At the top is whatever opened today, marked “Opened today” with a “Read the letter” button. Below are two sections. “For me” shows what is still waiting and what has already opened. “From me” shows everything you have sent, with the day it opens and how long there is to go.
A small number next to the menu item tells you how many time capsules have newly opened. So a letter does not get lost, even if you are not thinking about it on the day.
What people write time capsules for
Most letters for later are written on ordinary days, when it strikes you that this is exactly the moment you want to keep. A few occasions that suit one well.
To yourself, in a year
What is on your mind right now, what you hope for, what you have set out to do. A year later you read it and know how it turned out. The empty letter asks you exactly that while you write.
For an 18th birthday
Mia is eight. A letter with a few photos from today, of her counting conkers in the park, opens on her birthday ten years from now.
To everyone, for New Year's Eve
A few lines about the year to the whole family. They open for everyone on the last day of the year, and in the evening you read them out to each other.
For an anniversary
To Paul, for your tenth. What the two of you are starting just now, and what you want to tell him once it is behind you.
What Gran remembers
Ruth writes down her quince jam recipe and what it was like when she was small. For Mia, once she is old enough to make it herself.
Before a big change
Before the move, before the new job, before the first day at school. What you thought beforehand reads quite differently a few years later.
Sealed when it is to you, open until the day when it is to others
Whether you can read and change a letter again before its day depends on who it is for. There is no switch for this, the rule is fixed.
To yourself
- When you press “Seal”, the letter is sealed. Until the day you can neither read it nor change it.
- You can still take it back, should you no longer want it.
- Your list shows “sealed” next to it, so you know why it will not open.
To others
- Until the day you can read it and change it: the recipients, the day, the heading, the text and the photos.
- You can take it back. It then disappears for everybody it was for and cannot be brought back.
- This holds until it has opened for its first recipient. After that it stays as it is. If you are among the recipients yourself, the same applies.
Good to knowSealed means that nexdiary does not hand the letter out before the day, not even to you. Its content lies encrypted in the database like every page. Against somebody who holds the whole server it protects as far as the rest of the encryption does; there is more on that under Security.
Several recipients
A time capsule can go to up to 50 people, to yourself and to others at once. You can choose any account on your server that is not blocked.
Every recipient gets the letter on their own morning, because the day begins at midnight in the time zone they were in when it was sent. If Ruth lives in a different time zone from yours, the letter opens for her at her midnight. Travelling or moving later on opens nothing any sooner.
How to write a time capsule
A time capsule takes a few minutes. Everything you need for it is in a single window.
- “New time capsule”
The button sits at the top right of the “Time capsules” page.
- Who it is for
Under “For whom? Several are fine.” you tap “Myself”, other people in the family, or both.
- When
“In a year”, “In five years”, “New Year's Eve” or a date of your choice, at most 50 years ahead. The day has to lie in the future for every recipient.
- Letter and photos
You write the heading and the letter in the same editor as a page, with bold, italics, subheadings, quotes and lists. “Add photos” takes as many photos as you like, several at once or fresh from the camera.
- “Seal”
Then the letter is on its way. If you close the window before that, nexdiary asks whether you want to discard the time capsule, so that nothing is lost by accident.
What the recipients see until then
Whoever gets a time capsule knows that something is waiting for them, but not what. nexdiary tells you so as you write: until then the others only see that a letter from you is waiting, not what it says.
- They see who the time capsule is from, its heading and the day it opens. On their page it lies there as a closed envelope.
- They do not see the text or the photos, nor even how many photos there are. The server holds all of that back, not just the interface; it gives none of it out anywhere.
- When it arrives a message comes, if a device is signed up for notifications, along the lines of “Paul sent you a time capsule. It opens on …” The person who wrote it gets no message.
Good to knowSince the heading can be seen beforehand, it may make people curious but should give nothing away. “For you, on your 18th birthday” is enough.
The morning it opens
At midnight the day has come and the time capsule is open. At 8 in the morning, on each recipient's own clock, the message reaches the phone.
A message that gives nothing away
It reads something like “A time capsule from Ruth has opened.”, and for a letter to yourself “Your letter to yourself has opened.” It does not say what is inside either. Each message goes out only once.
Tapping it opens nexdiary at the time capsules. The letter is right at the top there, marked “Opened today”, with a “new” beside it and a number next to the menu item.
Good to knowThe message only reaches devices signed up for notifications under “My account”, “Reminders”. On the iPhone that only works from the app on the home screen, from iOS 16.4. The guide shows how under Reminders.
Who wrote it, and when
An opened letter names who sent it, the day it was written and how long ago that was, along the lines of “Ruth wrote this letter 1 year ago, on …”.
The photos lie below the letter and open large when you tap them. Afterwards the letter stays under “Opened”, for as often as you want to read it again.
When an account is deleted, the letter stays
A letter to Mia for her 18th birthday should arrive even if much has changed in ten years. The time capsule is built for that.
- The sender leaves: if her account is deleted, the time capsule stays for its recipients and opens on its day. It then names a deleted account as its sender.
- A recipient leaves: if their account is deleted, only their own access to the time capsule goes. Nothing changes for anybody else.
- Blocked accounts: a blocked account cannot be chosen as a recipient, and nexdiary shows nobody the time capsules of a blocked sender.
- Everybody else: whoever is neither sender nor recipient cannot find the time capsule, the operator included. For them it simply does not exist.
Good to knowEvery time capsule has a key of its own. It is kept in the database once for every person who holds the capsule, sealed with that person's own key. That is why the letter outlives the account that wrote it. Only the operator can delete an account in nexdiary, by the way.
How far it goes
The limits are generous, but they exist. They are listed here so that none of them takes you by surprise.
| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Opening day | at most 50 years ahead, and in the future for every recipient |
| Recipients | up to 50 per time capsule, only accounts on your server |
| Heading | up to 200 characters |
| Letter | up to 50,000 characters |
| Photos | as many as your storage holds; the operator sets it, 5 GB per person by default |
| Time capsules | up to 500 sent per person at a time |
| Changing | for letters to others, until they open for the first recipient |
A time capsule only goes to people with an account on your server, not by mail to anybody outside. You can put photos in, but no videos. And a letter has no pictures in the middle of the text; the photos lie together below it.