How to automatically turn snail mail into email, sort of

Still getting snail mail but want it delivered to your email inbox? A (relatively) new service may have the answer, sort of.

 

For $4.99 (P203) a month, one can subscribe to Outbox to collect one's snail mail, scan it, and send the scanned version to one's email.

 

“We think of the mailbox as the first social network,” Will Davis, who co-founded Outbox in 2011 in Austin, told Mashable.

 

Davis and co-founder Evan Baehr also said they consider physical mail an essential form of communication.

 

“Although we sit at this intersection of physical and digital, we think paper has a really important role in society,” Baehr said.

 

Under the service, Outbox will visit a subscriber's mailbox three times a week and collect the snail mail.

 

It then sorts and scans the mail, and sends the user a digital version that can be accessed from a smartphone app or a website.

 

A subscriber can also request a physical copy of the snail mail, with Outbox delivering it to his or her mailbox in two days.

 

Outbox will also shred unwanted mail or mail a recipient does not want to keep, 30 days after it is received.

 

It can even opt a user out of unwanted mail like coupons or circulars, though unsolicited gifts from merchants such as samples of new products can be delivered. — TJD, GMA News