Yes, you can track USPS yourself using the numbers. What I meant is…USPS doesn’t send you emails about the whereabouts of your packages like fed ex and UPS do.
^ Not sure what you meant. I was able to request USPS to send me email for activity update last night. Here is the second email I received:
Thank you for using USPS.com.
This is a post-only message. Please do not respond.
coolweather has requested that you receive a USPS Tracking® update, as shown below.
USPS Tracking® e-mail update information provided by the U.S. Postal Service.
Tracking Number: …
Expected Delivery Date: December 22, 2016
Service Type: USPS Tracking
Shipment Activity Location Date & Time Shipping Partner
Departed USPS Destination Facility City, Zip Code December 20, 2016 10:39 am
Arrived at USPS Destination Facility City, Zip Code December 20, 2016 10:37 am
Departed USPS Origin Facility LAS VEGAS, NV 89120 December 19, 2016 10:52 pm
Arrived at USPS Origin Facility LAS VEGAS, NV 89120 December 19, 2016 10:51 pm
Accepted at USPS Origin Facility LAS VEGAS, NV 89199 December 19, 2016 9:36 pm
Shipment Picked Up LAS VEGAS, NV 89199 December 19, 2016 6:20 pm
Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item HENDERSON, NV 89014 December 18, 2016 8:53 am
You can track through USPS. Ever since my son began working there, I use no other carrier and have never had a problem with a delivery and the prices are much better for the most part. Besides, I want to keep my son employed, he just came off my health insurance and on to the fed’s.
Hmmm… hope your package wasn’t on this truck!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/12/20/fedex-truck-stolen/95671784/
@thumper1 I get texts as well.
USPS sent me texts for something coming from Restoration Hardware. I was kinda disappointed it was their catalog. 
I recall that when I’ve sent packages, during the payment process, the USPS person asked if I wanted to receive updates via email or text.
On another note, UPS delivered a package to us last night at about 8 pm. All the carriers are out and about at odd times this time of year.
I had some legal documents sent FedEx 2 day with a by 10:30am delivery today from the east coast to the west. At 10:05am this morning, tracking shows it is at the facility in the delivery city. I am thinking it will not make it by 10:30, as it isn’t on the truck yet. When the tracking information has not changed in the last 5 hours, I give FedEx a call to see if they can shed some light. After talking to the woman for a bit, and she called the facility when the package should have been received before being put on a truck, she comes back and tells me they have no tracking information. She adds that it might have been delivered, or it might not!! FedEx has no idea it they still have the package or if it has been delivered; it seems to me lost in space 
I have an email out to the receiving party, but have not heard back. For FedEx’s sake, I hope the package has been received!
I signed up for FedEx Delivery Manager some time ago. Now anytime anything is sent to my address I get an email letting me know a package is on it’s way, it includes the tracking number and all other pertinent information. And this includes packages sent to anyone in my household, not just me. So obviously, you don’t really need a tracking number — a destination is enough.
I recommend signing up for the Delivery Manager so in the future you’ll get emails and you can sign in and see all your expected deliveries. It’s free and you don’t have to enter tracking numbers.
UPS My Choice is also free and again you can login and see everything. (Though looking at it now, it appears it is by name and address so I guess I should create an account for my husband too.)
ETA: Well, that’s ironic. Moments after posting this I got a text from UPS that a delivery would be coming today (even indicates a window of time). However, I know I wasn’t expecting one. Looked it up, it’s a delivery for my D. So, yes, it’s also by address only.
@ClaremontMom For UPS, you can add names and variations of names for your address. So for your address, you can add
Clare
Claremont
ClaremontMom
CM
You can also add family members. ClaremontDad, ClaremontD, ClaremontS, and any variations on their names.
(Kathleen, Kathy, Kate, etc.)
You can find that on the My Settings Tab alongside the My Delivery Planner Tab. This has worked well over the years. Not just for holiday packages, but we can track school books and other stray stuff.
@m0minmd -You must have missed my edit. Looks like I didn’t need to do anything, I got a notification for a delivery for my D moments after posting. I just couldn’t remember whether I did or not when I was posting since 90% of the time deliveries are in my name anyway.
I was surprised that I received a notification from UPS saying that my package was delivered at my front door yesterday. I did not make any order to ship via UPS. It turned out it was my D’s order. I signed up for UPS Choice couple months ago. Probably I received the notification because of this.
My USPS package was delivered one day earlier yesterday.
And I had 4 packages delivered to my house yesterday. 2 were from my D. One package was from Amazon but the label did not show the carrier name. I doubt that it was delivered by FedEx.
My gifts are all wrapped. Only the name tags are needed. I will use the computer to print them later (my procastination!).
No rant for me.
Happy Holidays!
Turns out my FedEx package was delivered, but not by 10:30am which I paid for. The recipient let us know yesterday afternoon that he had indeed received it. I got an email from FedEx at 1:00 this morning that the package was delivered at 12:20pm, so I have proof it was not delivered as expected. I will see if the aggravation is worth getting back some money from them; my gut feeling is it won’t be!!
^^snowball, definitely check me on this, but I believe the delivery guarantee is suspended between Dec 19-24, so you could be wasting your time.
Okay, this is seriously cool! I just saw on the news where USPS has a Christmas tree ornament that lights up in different colors when your packages have been shipped or delivered. Now that’s awesome, if it works as it should.
I had an Amazon Prime delivery Wednesday and one of my items was missing. This has happened to me only one other time. I called and they said it’d be delivered by 8 pm today.
Just had a front door knock and it was there. I’m on a rural state highway, but several hours from a warehouse. They must be running too, because by the time I made it to the front door, I could see their taillights at the end of my long lane.
UPS and FedEx bring packages to my door. USPS beeps the horn and if I don’t come out, they take it back to the Post Office, even if no signature is required.
That seems really rude, srystress. Is it that hard for USPS to just bring it to your door? Seems like they would have to deliver it that way, if no signature is required. What, do they think you have nothing else to do but wait for them to lay on the horn and have you come running any time of the day? I wonder if it’s the particular delivery person who started doing it, and gets away with it. Can you tell them to stop doing that and deliver to the door, and if they don’t knock it off, file a complaint?
“UPS and FedEx bring packages to my door. USPS beeps the horn and if I don’t come out, they take it back to the Post Office, even if no signature is required.”
That’s crazy. Definitely make a complaint to your local postmaster.
The USPS guys in my neighborhood sometimes deliver to the wrong persons. Early this year I had to wait for two days to get my package because the guy put the package key into my neighbor’s mail slot and the neighbor did not check mail two days later.
Either UPS or the post office delivered two boxes to my door last night around 9 p.m. Whoever it was was quiet; the dog didn’t bark.
Yes, it’s crazy and that’s why H and I have no problem understanding why USPS bleeds red and loses business. It’s a 25 mile round trip to the Post Office…and this is why I hate Sure-Post, Smart Ship–anything that involves the PO.
UPS and FedEx get an A+ for deliveries here, and bonus points for the last week when it was difficult to stay upright on all the ice.
Same here. My neighborhood has one of those cluster box units for the neighborhood where everybody picks up their mail. About 15 years ago USPS stopped allowing you to drop outgoing mail at the cluster, so we had to drive about 3 miles roundtrip to the nearest mailbox to send mail. There’s actually slots for outgoing mail in the cluster box, but USPS blocked them off.
We talked to the local post office about how to request an outgoing mailbox for our neighborhood and they literally laughed at us! After a good chuckle they wrote down the name of some regional center and said we could try calling there but good luck even getting anybody to answer the phone.
Such a strange business model: first class mail is their most profitable and what keeps USPS afloat, but instead of making it easy to use them for first class they actively made it difficult. Some genius finally realized what was happening and unblocked the outgoing mail slots last year.