I remembered many years ago I had a friend asking me whether is it possible for an email to automatically delete itself after the recipient read it? I thought about it and I don’t think it’s possible because emails downloaded into Outlook are saved inside the computer. If there’s a code to make the email client to auto delete that email, it will pose a very great security risk. Imagine sending an email that can delete all everything in your My Documents or even worse, from the root of the drive.
Although it’s impossible to automatically delete message, email or text in emails, but there’s a similar way where you can send a link to the recipient via email. The link and web page is specially crafted to only view once or auto expire after a predefined interval. When the recipient opens the link and read the contents, the link will no longer work the next time you try to use again. Thanks to those creative people who thought of this idea which enables us to send a message that can self delete.
There are many web sites that offers this free service. Tech[dot]Blog listed 10 websites that is able to self destruct a message.
I randomly tested one of the service called KickNotes from the 10 free services listed by Tech[dot]Blog.
Once KickNotes web site finished loading, you’ll be asked whether to set the message to self destruct after being opened at a few times or after a predefined interval(Minutes, Hours, Days or Weeks). Then type the message. It can either be in plain text or HTML. You can preview the message before creating the self destruct message. Once you’re sure the message is correct, just click on the Create Message button.
The next page will show you the specially crafted link that contains your message that expires. Enter your email or name, and then your friend’s email address and click the Send Link button. Your friend will receive an email containing the link. Opening up the link will display the message that you typed. Once the link expires, either after a few views or days, you’ll get the message saying “The message you’re trying to view has either never existed or has self destructed“.
Other than that, these free services can be used as anonymous messengers. But I guess they sure keep track of your IP address when you send a message. So make sure you don’t abuse this free service…
It’s better you learn how to identify the domains of this free service. If someone sent me a link from any of the domains that provides self destruct messages, I know it’s surely something people want you to view at a very limited time only. So I make sure I’d saved the information before the message self destructs or automatically removed!
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I place a lot of historical research online for free use, but I don\\\\\\\’t want others to save my data to their harddrive as a permanent record. Sometimes my research on familytrees changes and if these people have saved incorrect records, it can pepetuate bad data. I would like to know if there is a code to place on my webpage, whereby, I can cause saved webpages to automatically expire after a certain period of time and delete themselves from others harddrives….say after the file is OPENed on the hard drive One time.
Ceci es un test
Thank You very much for the useful articles.
[...] Although it’s impossible to automatically delete message, email or text in emails, but there’s a similar way where you can send a link to the recipient via email. The link and web page is specially crafted to only view once or auto expire after a predefined interval. When the recipient opens the link and read the contents, the link will no longer work the next time you try to use again. Thanks to those creative people who thought of this idea which enables us to send a message that can self delete. (more…) [...]