When sending an email, your message and file attachments will be usually stored in your recipient’s Inbox. It will stay there for as long as your recipient doesn’t decide to move it to trash. However, there are certain instances wherein you would want to keep your email conversations “off the record”. In such cases, you might want to consider sending an email that fades away as soon as it’s opened. You can easily do so by using a simple browser extension like “Fade.li” for Chrome.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Fade.li is a simple yet powerful Chrome browser extension that you can use to send emails that fades away as soon as they’re read or opened. The concept is pretty much similar to sending self-destroying emails but with Fade.li, the email message gradually fades. Once the entire message has disappeared, there’s no way for you to recover it. You can only view and read the email once and that’s it. The email message will usually fade in 4 – 7 seconds. That’s not all. You can also use this simple browser extension to send fading pictures or images.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Lightweight and non-obtrusive
• The emails that you’ve sent will gradually fade away as soon as they’re opened
• Uses banking-grade (256 AES) encryption to secure your fading email messages
• You can send fading emails to multiple recipients
• You can attach and send a photo that fades when opened
• Works on any major email service such as Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail
• Can also function without the use of any browser extension – just add .fade.li to your recipients email address then send (ex. your-email-name@email.com.fade.li)
• Works best on modern desktop browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari (for viewing the fading emails)

Cons

• You can only send a maximum of 50 fading emails per day
• You can only send fading emails in English
• You cannot control how long your fading emails would stay

Discussion

The way how Fade.li works is fairly easy. As a matter of fact, you can opt not to install the Chrome extension. Just add “.fade.li” right at the end of your recipient’s email address and that’s it. You can even send fading emails to multiple recipients. Even so, the extension can be quite handy especially if you are planning to use Fade.li to prevent your recipients from keeping a copy of your highly-controversial email messages.

To use the extension, install it first on your Chrome browser and then go to your preferred email service (ex. Gmail) then compose a new email. You can write whatever you like and once you’re finished, just click the “Fade.li” button instead of the “Send” button. This will prompt the extension to encrypt and send the email message as a fading email instead of a regular email.

After which, you wait until your recipient opens the email. Instead of receiving a regular email in text format, the email will be automatically converted into an image so your recipient must click the “Display Images Below” link before he or she could view the actual email message. The message will then be displayed for at least 4 to 7 seconds and after that, it will slowly fade away starting from the first word to the last word. Everything will be wiped off and even if you read the email again, you won’t be able to see anything at all. However, the email transcript which shows the rest of the email’s info like the name of the sender, date, time, subject, etc. will be preserved.

It should also be noted that the current version of Fade.li can only send fading emails in English plus, you can’t opt to make your fading emails stay for a longer period. There’s also a limit to the number of fading emails that you can send per day. Right now, users are only allowed to send a maximum of 50 fading emails daily.

Except for the abovementioned drawbacks, Fade.li appears to be a very stable and responsive tool. It is also non-obtrusive. Its icon will only appear when needed. When I used it, I haven’t experienced any serious issues. All of the emails that I’ve sent were successfully received and read by their respective recipients. Even so, keep in mind that fading emails can still be saved via screenshots so be always be mindful when it comes to the content of your email messages. In other words, think before you send.

Conclusion and download link

If you are looking for a way to make your emails even more interesting, go ahead and feel free to try Fade.li. If you’re using Chrome as your default web browser, then go ahead and use its extension but if you’re frequently on mobile, then just use the alternative option. Either way, this tool is really worth checking out.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.25.40

Requires: Chrome on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, Linux and Mac OS X

Fade.li on Web Store