Jake Russo

Looking at the bars printed at the bottom of the letters I received last week made me realize I’d never spent as much time learning about these Intelligent Mail barcodes as intended. When I got my first credit card in the mail, Amex emailed me when it was out for delivery and had been delivered. Being an entry-level, Blue Cash Everyday card, they’d only sent it via regular, First-Class Letter service, which, as far as I knew, wasn’t tracked.

As it turns out, these letters¹ can be tracked! The tracking isn’t as detailed as that of packages, and there aren’t always out-for-delivery or delivered updates,² but it’s a massive improvement over the “drop it in the collection box and cross my fingers” method I’d been using.

There are websites that charge per letter to do this, and downloadable paid software to streamline generating and cataloging your IMb codes,³ but it’s more fun to do it yourself.

(After publishing this, I found a free tool that does ~all of the work for you. It’s easier to set up, and its tracking interface is better for at least some use cases.)

It took me a bit to understand how I could do this myself: the information was scattered around various corners of the internet (maybe interest in using Intelligent Mail barcodes to track your personal mail is relatively low), so here is my attempt at an all-in-one guide!

What is an IMb?

An IMb is a barcode the USPS uses to track and sort letters, among other things. It’s 31 digits long and follows⁴ the format shown in the following image.

If you’ve noticed the number sometimes printed at the bottom of your mail, you might have realized that buildings in the US can be identified by an 11-digit delivery point ID, AAAAABBBBCC, where A stands in for each digit of the 5-digit ZIP code, B for each of the extra four (ZIP+4), C for the last two of the building number. For example, the delivery point ID for 10401 Post Office Blvd Fl 2, Orlando, FL 32862 is 32862854201. There is only one building in this ZIP+4, so the delivery point ID isn’t any more specific. Generally, though, the ZIP+4 will represent a handful of houses on one side of the street. In this case, the delivery point ID would refer to only one address because the last two digits of a building number shouldn’t repeat within a ZIP+4.

You can use this tool from Melissa to look up ZIP+4s and create delivery point IDs.

Note that the routing code doesn’t have to include the full 11 digits, nor is it even required. I always include it to help with sorting, but that requires each barcode be customized for each address. If you’re only interested in tracking, you can leave out the routing information.

Making an IMb

To generate IMb codes, you need a mailer ID. USPS makes obtaining one seem grander than it is. When they say you need to “apply” for a mailer ID, they mean to say that you need to be able to type information into a web form and hit submit before automatically being granted one. And you, dear reader, are your own “designated Business Service Administrator.”⁵

1. Make a USPS business account here.
   • This can’t be shared with your personal account (e.g., if you order stamps online or use Informed Delivery).
   • You can list your home address and respond with your name when it asks for that of your business.
   • You can follow more detailed instructions here.
2. Once you’ve reached the BCG homepage, click “Mailing Services” in the top-left, and click “Get Access” next to “Informed Visibility.”
3. Find your mailer ID by clicking “Go to Service” next to “Mailer ID” that same page, or by navigating to mid.usps.com.
   • It is not the number above your “company address.”⁶
4. Visit the USPS IMb Encoder/Decoder, and click on the “Encoder” tab.
5. Assuming your mailer ID is 9 digits, select that radio button.
6. The barcode ID should always be “00.”
7. For a regular letter with tracking, enter “310” in the “Special Services” field.
   • This number should be the Service Type ID (STID), which you can find listed here. 310 is the STID for basic/nonautomation⁷ First-Class Mail with tracking but without address correction.
   • The STID is not to be confused with the Content Identification Number (CIN), which is also three digits and is required by the Intelligent Mail Barcode Generator (IMBG) tool. Both the CIN and the IMBG are completely irrelevant for our purposes.⁸
8. You get to make up the serial number and can use an Excel sheet or something to track them. Assuming your mailer ID is 9 digits, your serial number will be 6 digits. You can start with zero and number them sequentially, generate them randomly, or do something else; it’s yours. Enter it in the field.
9. Enter the delivery point information if you’re using it.
10. Press “Encode.”
11. Save the image of the IMb, and print it on an envelope, address label, or similar; or
    • Download and install the USPS IMb font from PostalPro
      • In the ZIP file, it’s “USPSIMBStandard” in fonts → scalable → trueType
    • Paste the string of barcode characters (some combination of A, D, F, and T) into Word or a similar program
    • Set the font to USPSIMBStandard, and change the size to 16 or 17pt, as recommended by USPS
12. You can print the barcodes directly on envelopes, or on stickers or pieces of paper. You can print the address with each barcode, but you don’t have to; you may also hand-write addresses.

The IMb can be placed immediately above or below the address (with some clearance), or near the bottom-right of the mailpiece. USPS offers some more guidance on placement.

I think applying IMb labels (with the delivery point code) to postcards helps save space and allows you to write over the barcode clear zone (where USPS would print their own IMb, based on the OCRed address). I’ve noticed postcards without white space left for the clear zone are generally still delivered but take longer.

In my experience, USPS doesn’t apply their own IMb to mailpieces that already have an IMb with the delivery point information. They might still print fluorescent barcodes on the back.

IMb Tracking

After you’ve started adding IMb codes to your letters, their tracking will begin to update! For mail deposited before the collection time in USPS blue boxes or at a Post Office (excluding hand-cancelled items submitted at the service counter), there will generally be a “Cancellation of Postage” scan the night of the day it’s collected.

1. Log into iv.usps.com.
2. Under the “View Data” tab (pre-selected), click
   • “+ ADD ALL CRIDs” in the first box
   • “+ ADD ALL MIDs” in the second box
   • “NEXT STEP” at the bottom-right
3. On the next screen, under “Prepare for Data Download, “click “USE THIS METHOD.”⁹
4. From the drop-down menu under “Mail Object Type,” select “Piece.”
5. Fill out the date range you’d like under “Required Filter.”
6. Under “Data Fields,” you can click “Add All” so that you can decide which you’d actually like to use next time (not all of them will be populated). I’ve settled on “IMb Serial,” “Scan DateTime,” “Scan Facility ZIP,” “Scan Event Code,” and “Mail Phase.”
   • If you’re interested in more information on the tracking events, you can find it in this Excel sheet.
   • Once you settle on a configuration, you can save it using the “SAVE VIEW” button. After clicking, make sure to select “Save As” at the top. This step is required if you actually want your configuration to save, rather than just pretend to.
7. In the bottom-right, click “FINISH.”
8. Click “CONFIRM” in the bottom-right.
   • If you want to make changes, click “UPDATE,” not “CANCEL.” The latter will reset the process to “step 2” above.
9. Wait a little bit, then, under the “One-Time Query Output History” section at the bottom, click the dog-eared-paper icon under the “ACTION” column. If it says no files are available, wait a little longer, and refresh the page. There will be an alert at the top once the file is ready for download.
10. Once you’ve downloaded the file, open it in Excel or similar.
    • I like Google Sheets for this because it’s less annoying about the fields’ data types (e.g., it doesn’t convert the IMb code to scientific notation by default).
11. I just look through the scans by hand, but you could process them further if you’d like.

There is an IMb scanner app by Ashwood Data on iOS. It scans and surfaces tracking information for traceable IMb codes in a pleasant interface. It’s not without its issues (it harasses users about signing up for an account; it seems like it’s limited to displaying four tracking events max; the scanner interface is finicky; you must scan the IMb codes and cannot enter them manually), but it’s free and worth a try. You can use it to scan the IMb codes on marketing (and other commercial) mail you receive, which is a fun bonus.

That’s All!

Thanks for reading! I hope this guide has been useful to you. I enjoy checking my aggregate reports every few days and reconciling the tracking events against my spreadsheet of sent mail.

Relatedly, I’ve used Informed Delivery, the USPS service that emails you pictures of the front of your envelopes the morning of the day they arrive in your mailbox, for almost six years. It’s easily my most-opened email type, save for personal correspondence, and is probably based on the technology behind Informed Visibility (IV). They’ve even begun sending mail delivery notifications, which are generated, like the delivery events on IV, by the mail truck driving past your address. It’s worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Let me know what you think by sending me an email, and subscribe to my email list if you’d like to hear more from me.

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1. I send a lot of these! ↩︎
2. Because letters aren’t scanned upon delivery, the “delivered” event is assumed based on the mail truck, presumably carrying the letter in question, having driven by the delivery address. ↩︎
3. Yes, it’s redundant to say “Intelligent Mail barcode codes.” I like this better than writing “IMb’s” because the apostrophe looks wrong but is necessary to distinguish the lowercase “s” from the lowercase “b.” ↩︎
4. This depends on the length of your mailer ID and other factors (USPS will generate their own IMb codes, for example), but your mailer ID will probably be nine digits like mine. ↩︎
5. I originally thought this meant you needed a USPS account manager. You don’t. ↩︎
6. This might be obvious, though that number appears three times on the “Mailer ID” page, while the mailer ID appears once. Helpfully, the number above the business address is 8 digits and cannot be a mailer ID (not 6 or 9). ↩︎
7. “Nonautomation” doesn’t mean it’s not processed through automated mail equipment; it has something to do with how a large mailer would prepare mailpieces for USPS. ↩︎
8. USPS is reminding me of IB with how much they like initialisms. ↩︎
9. “Prepare for Online View” doesn’t surface information on individual mailpieces. I found out about this from this comment. ↩︎

This is an excerpt from something I wrote for a sociology class. I liked it and thought I might publish it here.

Interacting with customers at work has been a major socializing force for me. I got my first job around the time I turned 16 and worked consistently until moving to college. Starbucks was the most demanding of those jobs. Our store was constantly understaffed, and I thought it would be cool to work overtime (“No, I’m not busy at 4:30am; sure, I’ll come in!”). I would sometimes talk to upwards of 40 people per hour in the drive through. This constant loop of communication, where I would have approximately the same conversation with dozens of people in a row, gave me good feedback on what worked and how I could get the best responses. My greeting, after trying (A/B testing?) many variations, eventually solidified to, “Good morning, welcome to our Starbucks; what can I get for ya?”. I still use techniques¹ I learned during my time there, even in everyday situations.

One time, while working as a host at a sushi restaurant on a particularly busy night, a customer who had been waiting to be seated for a few minutes came to the counter, where I was taking an order, and asked if I was going to leave him waiting there much longer. I am not an angry person, but I, in the moment, could imagine a reality in which I told the gentleman exactly where he might take his business if he was so displeased with our service. It took me a second—maybe there was a loading symbol over my head—but I smiled, thanked him for his patience, and said we’d be with him as soon as we could given the volume of patrons. He seemed a little taken aback and walked sheepishly back to his party.

Something my partner noticed is that I apologize very often for things that aren’t my fault (e.g., “I forgot my water in the kitchen.”). I joked with her about another possible cause of this behavior, but I think the real one is socialization from my time in customer service. The way my coworkers, or at least the ones who seemed effective to me, would field customer complaints was to apologize immediately and (seemingly) sincerely and offer a solution (“Oh, I’m sorry you left it there; let me go get it for you.”). Interestingly, doing this at work rarely felt insincere to me, and it never does in my personal life. I think imitating that has affected my emotional response as well as my verbal one.

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¹This is intentionally vague because it includes a wide range of things, from “being patient and understanding” to “getting the FedEx clerk to make a minor exception for me while picking up a package.” Maybe it warrants further explanation in a later post.

This list is non-exhaustive, and the order is only a little particular.

• Over the summer, worked as a barista at Starbucks and host at a local sushi restaurant, sometimes 55 hours/week!
• Moved to college and lucked into some wonderful roommates (who were interested in me partly because of reading this blog!)¹
• Took the photo on the homepage of this site
• Reconnected with a former (no longer former!) best friend
• Made my first in-person Apple Store purchase
• Played Beat Saber for the first time
• Gave a presentation on credit
• Got a crash course in dealing with car insurance
• Read The Other Significant Others, about friendship, and liked it a lot
• Gave a presentation on the importance of close friends
• Finally transitioned my writing to this blog
• Became a steadfast believer in “not wasting any time” on the dishes and throwing them ~straight into the dishwasher, partly thanks to Technology Connections
• Sent dozens of postcards and letters to a handful of people
• Found out shaving doesn’t have to be painful (got a Braun S9 Sport from Costco after years of using a safety razor)²
• Visited several specialty coffee shops
• Got a projector (XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro) on clearance from Sam’s Club, mostly to watch Impractical Jokers on the wall³
• Completed an online training that allows me access to my university’s podcast studio
• Started listening to music more often
• Went to the post office more often than I care to admit
• Found out it’s possible to lose track of time and talk for hours, only realizing this once the sun starts to come up; who knew!
• Started thinking of this quote from Experimental History and decided I might know what it means
  • “And yes, love is all of those things. But it’s not only those things. […] That’s why, at a happy wedding, the couple looks like they know a secret that no one else knows, a secret that no one else can know.“

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¹Which has led me to write off all my spending on the services to run it as 100% worth it

²I’ve started writing a post about this; it might eventually see the light of day.

³The thing is actually fantastic and might warrant a mini review.

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I compiled this list by memory and scrolling through my photo library. I will start keeping a rolling list, adding things as they happen, which should make for a more interesting post next season.

I gave a speech on the value of close friendship to my Technical Presentations class. This was supposed to be a persuasive presentation. It went okay, and the topic is one I think about often. I figured I’d share the video here in case anyone else might find it interesting.

Notes

• The speech was produced a few hours before delivery.
• My movements aren’t very polished.
• I’ve cut out a personal anecdote (around 1:51).
• The speech is partly inspired by Neel Nanda’s Intentionally Making Close Friends but, I think, original enough.
  • “Non-standard action” (3:55) is a direct lift.
• The list of questions (4:08) is mis-cited as being adapted from a New York Times article. More accurately, it is adapted from Neel Nanda’s adaptation of that article.
• The part at the beginning, about having “no place left to turn” was inspired by a prop in a TWiT set that lives, from time to time, rent-free in my head.
• I was a little light on information about mental health benefits of close friendships, probably because I figured it was almost intuitive. The presentation could’ve used figures on neurotransmitters.
• The ending isn’t strong and could’ve been more inspirational—maybe something about how even strangers prefer deep conversation to small talk, or an anecdote about one of my unlikely friendships.
• I might update this list as I continue to notice things about the presentation.

Standing invitation to send me a message with your thoughts!

Transcript

Have you ever felt sad, lonely, like you have no place left to turn?

Well, all of us have, and ironically, we’re not alone.

According to the American Psychological Association, one in ten Americans feels lonely every day, and that number rises to one in three each week.

So I’m going to make the case to you for making, for why you should make close friends.

I’m going to propose this as a solution to loneliness.

And, as kind of a roadmap here, I’m going to go over the definition of close friendship, establish that this sort of friendship is uncommon, go over the benefits of such friendship, and finally, how you can make those friends.

So how do we define close friendship?

My favorite definition comes from a blogger who’s written a lot on the subject of friendship.

His name is Neel Nanda, and this comes from one of his 2021 posts.

A close friendship is safe, it’s comfortable, it is emotionally close and vulnerable, which I think is one of the number one points there, built on mutual trust.

And close friendship is uncommon.

Now, while about one in 12.5 Americans have no close friends, a plurality, so they have five or more.

So it sounds like we’re in pretty good shape.

Unfortunately, of the things people report discussing with their close friends, their mental health ranks last, with 31% of females discussing this, and only 15% of men.

Now, this comes from the Pew Research Center, a survey they did.

So what are some of the benefits of close friendship?

Well, one of them, of course, is support during crisis.

Now, what else do you get from close friendships?

Is it just like paying an insurance premium?

You maintain friendships just in case you need them in time of crisis, but it’s just a pain in other ways?

No.

In fact, there’s a lot of meaning in the day to day of having close friends.

I would argue that witnesses give your life meaning, sharing your life with other people, becoming intimately familiar with other people’s lives, and they with yours, is one of the most gratifying and interesting and joyful experiences I’ve had.

Now, it also improves your mental and physical health.

The mental health bit is a little more obvious, but the physical health aspects we’ll get to in just a minute, it makes you happier, and it gives you a sense of security.

Knowing that there are people who are just radically accepting of you gives you a sense of belonging that I think is just unmatched.

Now, on the topic of physical health, this comes from a PLOS Medicine Metaanalytic Review, a bunch of different studies, 2010.

People with no friends, poor quality friendships, are twice as likely to die prematurely, a risk factor even greater than the effects of smoking 20 cigarettes per day.

Now, close friendships also build empathy.

According to studies of brain activity, the closer two friends become, the more similar their brainwaves become to the same stimulus.

That means this blue circle expands as you get to know someone better.

Now, all of this is great, but how do you make close friends?

Well, I have a few tips for you, be vulnerable.

It’s hard, and it’s not a standard action, but it is incredibly rewarding.

Ask deep questions, nice weather, what are your insecurities?

Now, this comes from a New York Times article called The 36 Questions That Lead to Love, it was published in 2015, and it was meant to give you kind of more of a guideline for romantic relationships, but as psychologist Marissa Franco, PhD, argues, there are fantastic benefits to incorporating some of the intimacy building activities that are traditionally present in romantic relationships into platonic ones as well.

Now, we’ve talked about being vulnerable, asking questions, what else?

Listen actively.

You want to learn more about people, and you want them to realize that you’re paying attention.

This is very important.

And don’t be afraid to be weird.

Chances are, you seem less weird than you expect.

Now, I hope I’ve inspired you, all of you here, to go out and make a friend.

This transcription was generated using Aiko on iOS, which is a GUI for OpenAI Whisper.

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