USPS Lost Mail: How to File a Missing Mail Search

Can you track the mail?

This is not always an option. If you sent your mail using Certified Mail, you are in a better position than if you used an ordinary First-Class Mail stamp. A regular First-Class letter does not include USPS Tracking, so there is no tracking number you can enter on the USPS website. Most letters still find their way to the destination, but I have had customers tell me that their recipient never received one. In those cases, we generally send a duplicate mailpiece.

An online mail provider may still be able to show limited barcode visibility for ordinary First-Class letters. The Intelligent Mail barcode, commonly called an IMb, can produce scan events as USPS processes the letter. This is useful, but it is not the same as end-to-end USPS Tracking or Certified Mail.

At The Letter Pilot, you may see a last-updated location and status in your dashboard when IMb scan data is available. That gives us another place to look when a customer says a letter has not arrived, even when the mailpiece was sent without Certified Mail.

Delayed, missing, or lost?

So what do you do if you believe your mail is missing? Well, if you mailed it with regular First-Class Mail, you may be out of luck. There usually is not much to look up. If you have some visibility into the last Post Office or processing location it touched, you can try calling, but I would keep expectations low. USPS handles a massive amount of mail, and finding one ordinary letter can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.

In our experience, most of the time, even after we resend the mail, the original mailpiece randomly turns up and eventually makes it to its destination.

If the mail never arrives and is not returned to the sender, the address on the envelope may have been incomplete, incorrect, or difficult to read. In that situation, the Post Office may not have enough information to deliver or return it. Mistakes can happen on both sides, whether the address was entered incorrectly or the mailpiece was mishandled during processing.

When you can submit a Missing Mail search

So, now that you understand why ordinary First-Class Mail can be tricky, what if the missing mailpiece was sent using Certified Mail or Priority Mail? Both are trackable. Certified Mail gives you a tracking number and electronic verification of delivery or an attempted delivery, while Priority Mail includes USPS Tracking.

If the mailpiece has been missing for at least seven days after the original mailing date, but no more than 365 days, you can use the online USPS Missing Mail service to submit a search request. USPS recommends filing as soon as possible within that window.

How to file the request

It is pretty simple to file a Missing Mail request. Open the USPS Find Missing Mail page and fill in the requested information. You will need your tracking information, when available, along with some other details about the mailpiece and where it was sent.

What happens after you submit it

After you submit the request, USPS begins its search and sends email updates when the status changes. If the mailpiece is found, USPS rewraps it and sends it to the address you provided. A search does not guarantee that the mail will be recovered.

If the mail is truly important, we highly recommend resending it so it has another chance to reach the destination.

Before assuming the original mailpiece is lost, check our USPS tracking status guide. A tracking status that has stopped updating does not necessarily mean the mail is lost.

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