Take a breath — most of these turn up within a day. Start with the scan detail in your timeline, because USPS records where the carrier left it, and that line often names a mailbox, front door or reception. Then check the usual spots: the mailbox itself, behind a screen door, the porch, and the parcel locker in an apartment lobby, where the key is often left in your box. Ask anyone else at your address, then the neighbours, since carriers sometimes hand over to whoever answers. Carriers also occasionally scan a package as delivered slightly early and finish the round afterwards, so it’s worth waiting until the end of the day. Nothing by tomorrow? Speak to your local Post Office rather than the national line — they can actually reach the carrier who ran that route — and tell the seller at the same time, since they’re responsible for the order reaching you.

Almost certainly not. USPS scans at handover points rather than continuously, so a package can travel a long way between two updates — especially over a weekend, a holiday, or a long haul between regional facilities. Three or four quiet days is ordinary; a week is worth watching. What matters more than the silence is the shape of your timeline. If the last scan is a departure from a facility, your package is moving and simply isn’t being scanned. If it’s an arrival with nothing after it, something is sitting still. Give it a few more days, and if the gap stretches past a week, USPS lets you start a missing mail search — the seller can start one too. We’ll keep watching in the meantime so you’re not refreshing a page.

Estimated dates are a best guess rather than a promise, and they slip more often than people expect: weather, seasonal volume and one busy facility can each add days. Check whether your timeline is still producing scans, because movement means it’s coming, just late — and in that case a few more days of patience is the honest advice. The combination worth acting on is a passed date plus silence. Contact the seller, since as the sender they can raise it with USPS in ways you can’t, and start a missing mail search once you’re past a week. Guaranteed services are the exception, carrying their own refund path when the promised date is missed, so hold on to the receipt if you paid for one.

Sometimes, and it depends how far along it is. USPS offers a paid intercept that can hold a package at a Post Office or send it back, but only while it hasn’t gone out for delivery, and not every item qualifies. The free options are broader instruments — holding your mail as a whole, or a change of address — and neither is quick enough for something arriving tomorrow. In practice the most reliable route is to let the delivery attempt happen and then use the slip to send it to your Post Office for collection. If the package hasn’t shipped yet, ask the seller to change the address instead; that’s far easier than intercepting it later.

That slip means your carrier couldn’t complete the delivery — nobody home to sign, or it wouldn’t fit the box — and your package is now waiting at your local Post Office. You’ve got three routes. Schedule a redelivery online or by phone using the details on the slip and pick a day that suits you. Collect it yourself from the office named on the slip, bringing the slip and photo ID. Or, if signing was the obstacle, sign the slip and leave it in your mailbox authorising the carrier to leave it next time. The clock is the part to respect: the Post Office holds packages for a limited window before returning them to the sender, and your slip carries the deadline that applies to you.

You can, though it works a little less formally than with the private couriers. USPS Delivery Instructions let you request a specific spot — a porch, a back door, a neighbour — on eligible packages, entered on USPS’s own site with your tracking number. Whether it’s honoured comes down to the carrier’s judgement and the service the sender paid for, and anything needing a signature will still need a person. A standing note in your mailbox works surprisingly well too, since most routes have a regular carrier who remembers. What we can add is telling you the moment it’s out for delivery, so you know which day your instruction actually matters.

No, and it’s worth being straight about why. We’re a tracking tool: we read the scans USPS publishes and put them in one place for you. We don’t hold your package, and we can’t redirect it, intercept it or message your carrier, because none of those levers belong to us. Anything that changes where a package goes has to come from USPS’s own service or from the sender, who holds the delivery contract. What we’re genuinely good at is the part around that — showing you exactly where things stand, telling you when something moves, and keeping every package you’re waiting on in one list instead of five carrier websites. Use us to know, and USPS or your seller to act.

Start with the seller, then USPS, and in that order. Your purchase contract is with whoever sold you the item, so under most consumer rules they’re responsible for it reaching you — and they’re the one who can refund or replace. They’re also the sender, which means they can file claims and enquiries that you often can’t. If the item was insured, either of you may be able to claim, and USPS runs its own process for damage claims and missing mail searches. Photograph the damage and keep the packaging before anything goes in the bin, because claims fail on missing evidence more than any other reason. Your timeline here gives you the exact scan times to quote in both conversations, which tends to shorten them considerably.

Add your tracking number here and switch alerts on — you’ll hear when your package moves instead of checking a page ten times a day. Tracking is free and you don’t need an account to start, though signing in is what lets us send updates and keep your list between visits. The upgrade worth taking: sign in with Google and connect your Gmail, and order confirmations get spotted automatically, so packages appear in your list before you’ve gone looking for a number. And since we follow more than 1,000 carriers, your USPS deliveries sit alongside everything else you’re waiting on rather than in a separate tab.

You may also want to explore tracking for these other destinations:

• Track parcels going to or from United States

• Check on your Canada delivery

• Your Great Britain orders, all in one place

• Waiting on something from Australia?

• Keep an eye on Germany deliveries

• Tracking made easy for Japan

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• UPS updates in one place

• Waiting on FedEx? Track it here

• Track your OnTrac parcels

• Following a LaserShip delivery?

• Asendia USA tracking, step by step

• See where your ABF Freight package is