Time capsule ideas: what to put in and what to leave out
Put in paper, printed photos and small dry objects from an ordinary week, each labelled. Leave out food, batteries, rubber and the only copy of anything digital. Set the opening date first.
What survives a sealed box is mostly paper and small dry objects. The things people most want to include, such as an old phone or a toy with batteries, often fare worst.
Decide when it opens before anything else. A box opened in five years and one opened in twenty-five need different containers, places and contents.
Make a digital scrapbook
Add your photos and keepsakes in tbf scrapbook, then arrange them on the pages.
| Item | Sealed for years | Better choice |
|---|---|---|
| Printed photographs | Fare well in a sleeve that passed the Photographic Activity Test | Prints of phone photos, with every person named on a separate sheet |
| Handwritten pages | Fare well flat in a folder | One letter or page per folder, unfolded and unstapled |
| Newspaper | Yellows, turns brittle and can stain what it touches | Its own folder, or a copy on better paper |
| Phone, USB stick or disc | Unreliable; the files or the means to read them may be gone | A printed list of what was on it, with copies kept outside the box |
| Batteries and battery toys | Can leak and corrode the box | Take the batteries out or leave the toy out |
| Food, sweets or seeds | Rot or draw pests | A photo of it, or its wrapper cleaned and flattened |
| Rubber bands and sticky tape | Perish and stain | Paper folders and envelopes |
| Clothing or fabric | Fares well if clean and dry | A small piece folded in acid-free tissue |
| Coins and badges | Fare well | Wrapped so they cannot rub a print; note the year on the list |
Ideas for a family, a class or a couple
Ordinary things surprise people most later. The price of bread, a school timetable or a takeaway menu shows how life worked, which a souvenir often does not.
- Family: a printed photo of each person, a paper strip marked with everyone's height, a week's shopping receipt, a drawn plan of the house.
- Class: one page per pupil answering the same five questions, a class photo with a separate key of names, the weekly timetable.
- Couple: your earliest and latest photos together, a list of every address you have shared, a printed map of your street.
- Anyone: a newspaper front page, a price list from a local shop, a train ticket with the fare printed on it.
- A child's drawing of the family, dated on the back in pencil.
- A list of the songs, programmes and games everyone is into this year.
What to leave out
Leave out food, sweets, liquids, batteries and anything with a battery inside. They can leak, rot or draw insects into a box nobody will check for years.
Leave out rubber bands, sticky tape, glue and steel paper clips. US National Archives storage guidance lists each of them among the materials that harm stored papers.
Do not make a USB stick or disc the only record. The Library of Congress advises checking digital copies every year and recopying every five years, which a sealed box rules out.
Containers and where to keep it
For a capsule kept indoors, an acid-free archive box inside a lidded plastic crate works well. Put papers in folders and photos in sleeves before they go in.
Burial exposes a box to water, frost and digging. Unless the container is made for it, choose a cupboard on an inside wall, off the floor, away from the loft and the cellar.
A class capsule left at a school needs a named keeper and a written location, because staff and cupboards change long before the opening day.
Choosing the opening date
Tie the date to the people inside: an eighteenth birthday, a final school year, a tenth anniversary. A date with a reason is remembered.
Write the date and the contents list on the outside, and give a copy of both to someone who lives elsewhere. Put a reminder in two calendars as well.
Steps
Fix the date and place
Decide when it opens and where it will sit until then. Both decide the container you need.
Collect for one week
Give everyone the same week to add things. A deadline stops the box filling with whatever happens to be nearby.
Prepare each item
Remove batteries, bands and clips. Put papers in folders and photos in sleeves, and name every person on a separate key.
Seal and record
List the contents, write the opening date outside and give a copy of both to someone who lives at another address.
Questions
What are good things to put in a time capsule?
Printed photos, a newspaper, receipts, a timetable, a drawn plan of your home and a page from each person. Things from an ordinary week tell a future reader most.
Should I bury a time capsule?
Only in a container made for burial, with a map and the exact spot recorded somewhere else. An indoor cupboard is drier and far easier to find again.
How long should a time capsule stay closed?
Tie it to an event, such as ten years, a child's eighteenth or a reunion. The longer the wait, the harder it is to keep track of the keeper and the location.