What it's like to receive a message from someone who has died

The email arrived on a Tuesday morning, sandwiched between a shipping notification and a newsletter I never signed up for. Subject line: "Happy Birthday, kiddo." It was from my friend Sarah's dad. He had died six months earlier.

Sarah couldn't open it for three days. She told me she'd stare at it in her inbox, his name right there in bold like he was still around. When she finally read it, she sat on her kitchen floor and cried for an hour. Not sad crying, exactly. Something more complicated than that. He'd written it months before he died, scheduled it through a service he'd found online, and never told anyone.

"It was like he reached through time and grabbed my hand," she said.

That sentence has lived in my head ever since. Because it captures something real about what technology has quietly made possible: the ability to hear from someone after they're gone.

The weight of a message you weren't expecting

People talk about posthumous messages in practical terms. Scheduled emails, digital vaults, legacy contacts. And those details matter — we'll get to them. But the experience of actually receiving one is something else entirely.

A friend of mine got a video from her mom about a year after she passed. Her mom had recorded it on her phone, just sitting at the kitchen table, talking about nothing in particular. What she was making for dinner. How the dog had been acting weird. And then, almost as an afterthought: "I just want you to know I think about you every single day, and I'm so proud of who you're becoming."

My friend watches that video on hard days. Not because it says anything earth-shattering. Because it sounds like her mom. The pauses, the way she clears her throat, the background noise of the TV she always left on. It's not a speech. It's a person.

That's what catches people off guard about these messages. They aren't grand farewell letters (though those have their place too — here's a guide to writing a meaningful legacy letter if you want to go that route). The ones that hit hardest are often casual. Ordinary. Because ordinary is what you miss most when someone is gone.

How posthumous messaging actually works

The idea of sending messages after death isn't new. People have been leaving letters in envelopes marked "open after I'm gone" for centuries. What's changed is the reliability and precision of it.

Here's how most modern systems work:

Scheduled delivery services. You write a message — email, letter, video, voice recording — and schedule it to be delivered on a specific date or after a specific event. Some services use a "deadman's switch" approach: they check in with you periodically, and if you don't respond after a set number of attempts, they assume you've died and release your messages.

Trusted contact systems. You designate someone — a spouse, a friend, an attorney — who can trigger message delivery. When you die, that person logs in and initiates the process. This is more hands-on, but it avoids the awkward situation of a system thinking you're dead when you just forgot to check your email for two weeks.

Legacy settings on existing platforms. Google has an Inactive Account Manager. Apple has a Legacy Contact feature. Facebook lets you designate a Legacy Contact who can manage your profile. These aren't specifically for sending messages, but they determine what happens to your digital presence and can be part of a broader end-of-life plan.

Dedicated posthumous messaging platforms. Services built specifically for this purpose let you create messages in various formats, encrypt them, and set conditions for delivery. Some allow timed releases — a message on every birthday for ten years, for example, or a letter that arrives when your kid graduates college.

Each approach has trade-offs. Scheduled delivery is hands-off but depends on the service still existing when you die. Trusted contacts give you more control but put responsibility on another person during an already difficult time. Built-in platform tools are convenient but limited in what they let you say.

What to actually think about before you set something up

If you're reading this and thinking about creating posthumous messages for your family, there are some things worth considering beyond the technical setup.

Who are you writing to, and what do they need to hear? This sounds obvious, but sit with it. Your partner might need practical information — where things are, what accounts exist, how to access important files. Your kids might need reassurance. Your best friend might just need to hear you say something only the two of you would understand. The message should fit the person, not the other way around.

When should it arrive? Timing matters more than people realize. A message that arrives the day after your funeral hits differently than one that shows up on someone's birthday six months later. The first might feel overwhelming — another thing to process in an already impossible week. The second might feel like a gift, a reminder that arrives exactly when the grief has settled into something quieter and lonelier.

Some people set up messages for specific milestones: weddings, births, graduations. Others schedule annual check-ins for the first few years. There's no right answer, but think about what your recipient's life will look like when the message lands.

How casual or formal should it be? I've talked to people who received both formal legacy letters and casual voice memos from the same person. Without exception, they treasured the casual ones more. The formal letter felt important. The voice memo felt like the person was still alive.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't write something thoughtful and structured. But don't skip the informal stuff. Record yourself talking about your day. Leave a voicemail-style message. Write an email the way you'd normally write an email — typos, half-finished thoughts, and all.

What about privacy? Think carefully about what you include. A message meant to comfort can accidentally cause pain if it reveals something the recipient wasn't ready for. Be honest, but be kind. Remember that you won't be there to explain context or answer follow-up questions.

The emotional reality for recipients

I want to be honest about something: not everyone wants to receive a message from someone who has died. For some people, it reopens wounds they're trying to heal. For others, it feels like the deceased is reaching across a boundary that should be final.

I've heard from people who felt a scheduled birthday email was comforting for the first two years and then became painful by the third. The reminder shifted from "he's still with me" to "he's really gone and this is all that's left." Grief isn't static, and a message that helps in year one might hurt in year five.

This is why some platforms give recipients the ability to opt out — to stop future deliveries if they choose. It's worth looking for that feature. It's also worth having a conversation with your family about your plans, even if you don't share the specific contents. Knowing that a message is coming, generally, can help someone prepare for it emotionally. A complete surprise isn't always welcome during grief.

The flip side is just as real, though. I know people who say a posthumous message from a parent is the most treasured thing they own. More than photos, more than jewelry, more than any inheritance. Because it's not a memory of someone. It's that someone, talking directly to them, in their own words, in their own voice.

The practical steps

If you've decided you want to set something up, here's a straightforward path:

Start with a list of recipients. Write down the people you'd want to hear from you. Partner, kids, parents, close friends. Don't overthink it — you can always add or remove people later.

Choose your format. Written messages are the most reliable long-term (file formats change, but text is text). Video and audio are more personal but depend on the platform staying accessible. A mix is ideal if you have the energy for it.

Pick your delivery method. Decide whether you want a scheduled service, a trusted contact, or both. If you use a trusted contact, make sure they know about it and are willing. You can also store your messages securely online alongside other important documents so everything is in one place.

Write the messages. Don't try to be profound. Just be yourself. Tell them what you want them to know. If you're stuck, pretend you're leaving a voicemail. "Hey, it's me. I just wanted to say..."

Set your delivery conditions. Choose dates, events, or triggers. Review them periodically — life changes, and your messages might need to change with it.

Tell at least one person. Someone in your life should know these messages exist, even if they don't know the contents. This prevents them from being lost if a service shuts down or a login expires.

What about AI and the future of this?

There's a growing conversation about using AI to simulate someone's communication style after they die — chatbots trained on a person's texts and emails, digital avatars that can hold something resembling a conversation. Some companies are already offering this.

I'll be direct: I find this unsettling, and most grief counselors I've spoken with share that concern. There's a meaningful difference between a message someone actually wrote and a message a system generated based on patterns in their data. One is a person reaching out. The other is a sophisticated echo.

But I also recognize that grief is personal, and I'm not going to tell anyone how to grieve. If talking to an AI version of someone you lost brings comfort, that's your choice to make. Just know the difference between hearing from someone and hearing something that sounds like them.

The messages that matter most — the ones people play over and over, the ones they read until the paper wears thin — are the real ones. Imperfect, specific, unmistakably human.

You don't have to do this perfectly

The biggest barrier to setting up posthumous messages isn't the technology. It's the emotional weight of sitting down and acknowledging that someday you won't be here. That's hard. Nobody wants to do that on a Tuesday night after dinner.

But here's what I keep coming back to: every person I've talked to who received a message from someone who died said the same thing. They said they wished there were more. More messages, more recordings, more of that person's voice and thoughts and bad jokes. Nobody ever said, "I wish they hadn't bothered."

You don't need to write the perfect letter or record the perfect video. You just need to leave something. A few sentences. A quick recording on your phone. An email draft you schedule for next year's birthday. Start small. Start imperfect. Start now.

When I Die Files was built for exactly this — a secure place to store the messages, letters, and important information your family will need someday. If you're ready to leave something behind for the people you love, it's a good place to begin.