Create a New Year Time Capsule
A New Year time capsule is a sealed collection of photos, videos, voice messages and writing made at the turn of a year and set to open at a later one — next New Year's Eve, or five or ten years on. It records what the year was actually like and what you expected from the next, and it cannot be opened by anyone before its date.
The last week of December is the one time everybody reviews a year at once. Almost none of it is written down, and by March nobody could tell you what they said.
A capsule fixes that with one small trick: it is sealed. You cannot reread it in February, quietly lower the bar, and pretend that was the plan all along.
A list of resolutions vs a New Year capsule
Both are written in the same week with the same good intentions. They differ in what happens afterwards.
| A list of resolutions | A New Year capsule | |
|---|---|---|
| What it records | What you intend to do | What the year was like, and what you expected from the next |
| Where it lives | A notes app, a fridge door, your memory | Sealed online, out of reach until the date |
| Editing | Quietly revised by February | Read-only once sealed, and the date cannot move either |
| What comes back | Usually nothing | An email on the opening day, with everything inside |
| Format | Text | Photos, video, voice recordings, documents and a long message |
| Cost | Free | Free when it opens within a year; one payment for longer |
This is not an argument against resolutions. Put them in the capsule — they are far more interesting read back than kept.
Nobody remembers what they expected from a year. A capsule does.
New Year time capsule ideas
Two halves: the year that is ending, stated plainly, and the year that is starting, guessed at. The guesses are the part worth waiting for.
The year that is ending
- The three things that actually happened this year, as opposed to the three you would put on a card
- A photo from each month, chosen in ten minutes without agonising
- The song, the series and the meal you would pick to stand for this year
- Who you saw most, by name, and who you meant to see and did not
- What things cost: rent, a coffee, a tank of fuel, the phone in your hand
- The thing you worried about most, and whether it happened
The year that is starting
- Your resolutions, word for word, before you have had the chance to soften them
- One thing you expect to have changed by this time next year
- One thing you expect to be exactly the same
- A prediction about your work, your home and the people around you
- A prediction about the world you would put money on
From the night itself
- A video of the room at midnight, or of the sofa if that is where you were
- A voice message from everyone present, ten seconds each
- Where you were, who with, and what was on the table
- A message to whoever opens this, recorded before the evening gets going
Film at least one of these. A list tells you what you thought; thirty seconds of video tells you who was thinking it.
Do it before the year turns
By the second week of January the old year has already been tidied into a story. Catch it while it is still a mess.
When should it open?
The date is the only decision you cannot revisit, so it is worth a minute.
Next New Year's Eve
The natural choice, and free: a capsule that opens within a year costs nothing. Open it before midnight and the evening has a second act.
1 January, a year on
The quieter version. Read it the next morning, alone, with a clear head and last year's predictions in front of you.
Five years
Long enough that the prices are funny and at least one prediction is badly wrong. The first distance at which the video surprises you.
Ten years
A different decade on the calendar and, usually, a different life. Far enough that the video is a shock, close enough that the questions still matter.
The start of the next decade
A date that needs no reminder, which is its whole appeal. Our plans run to thirty years, with longer dates available as a per-year add-on.
Making it a yearly ritual
One capsule is a curiosity. One every year is a record.
Open one, seal one
On the day last year's capsule opens, make this year's. The opening does the reminding, and rereading the old one tells you what was worth including.
Keep each one small
A free capsule includes 300 MB — plenty for photos, voice recordings and a few short clips. Ten minutes every December beats an ambitious archive you abandon in year two.
Download on opening day
An opened capsule stays online for the window you chose when sealing it, and is then deleted. Save the files when it opens, and the years start to stack up on your own drive.
Dress it for the occasion
There is a free New Year skin — gold, and a little celebratory — that changes how the capsule's page looks to whoever opens it.
Alone, as a couple, or with the whole party
The same capsule, three ways — and a fourth that is a different product.
You, for yourself
Add yourself as the only recipient and set it private. Nobody else will read it, which is the condition under which people tell the truth.
A couple or a household
One of you creates it and adds the other as a recipient. Each records a message the other does not hear until it opens.
A group of friends
One person collects everyone's predictions and clips, uploads them, and adds the whole group as recipients. Only a capsule's creator can add content, so somebody has to be the organiser.
Everyone at the party
An event time capsule is a batch bought for the evening: one QR code to print, each guest writing from their own phone, and every message sealed on sending and addressed to the recipients you chose — at a New Year's Eve party, usually the hosts.
Why sealing it matters
Once locked, a capsule cannot be edited, its date cannot be moved, and it cannot be opened early — not by you, not by your recipients, not by us. For a New Year capsule that is the feature, not a restriction.
A note on your phone is a living document. You will open it in a weak moment, decide that running a marathon always meant running a bit more, and the record is gone. A sealed capsule keeps the original wording, which is the only version worth reading.
If you change your mind entirely, you can delete a capsule you created. What you cannot do is improve it.
One year is easy. What about ten?
For a capsule that opens next December, the honest risk is small. For one that opens in ten or twenty years the question is fair: will this still be here? Files sit on Cloudflare R2 and capsule details on Cloudflare D1, encrypted at rest, and if we ever had to stop we commit to warning you in advance and releasing every pending capsule early rather than letting it disappear.
What we will not do is promise you decades as though anybody could. Our preservation page sets out what we commit to, and what we deliberately do not.
New Year capsule questions
What is a New Year time capsule?
What should I put in a New Year time capsule?
Is a New Year time capsule free?
How is this different from writing down my resolutions?
Can I make one every year?
Can everyone at a New Year's Eve party add a message?
How far ahead can a New Year capsule open?
This year, delivered to the next
Say what happened. Guess what comes next. Seal it.
Pay once — yours to download and keep on opening day.