No picture for this product, since it’s an app and I couldn’t track down a single decently-sized screenshot for it.
Parcel is the application that I use for tracking all of my packages. It’s an iOS/macOS exclusive, so if that’s a turnoff for you, you can go ahead and just skip to the next product. Or, maybe you could check out
Arrive from Shopify instead. Or perhaps you could keep reading—it’s your call.
At any rate, Parcel is a very clean and simple tracking app that consolidates 300 something tracking services into a single feed. It performs background checking and delivers push notifications so you can get notified when your package’s status changes, and it supports multi-device syncing. I find it handy because I can track shipments from my phone when I’m checking my email, and then I can get updates on my laptop when I’m working.
Compared to Arrive, I find Parcel to be highly reliable in terms of guessing fulfillment providers and providing push notification updates. Parcel does not support parsing your emails for tracking numbers, but in my experience, parcel trackers that do provide such a feature rarely pull in the correct information. I frequently have to go in and fix the deliveries that they detect; I’d much rather add my packages manually and have it work correctly the first time.
Parcel also has a much more streamlined workflow for adding packages: In most cases, you can just highlight a tracking number and share the text directly to Parcel. That’s on iOS, at least—on macOS, Parcel gives the Today view in Notification Center a reason for existence. Just copy a tracking number, open Notification Center, press a button, and Parcel will pull the number off the clipboard and guess the relevant fulfillment service. From there, you can tweak it as necessary and add a friendly label.
If you’re similarly embedded in the Apple ecosystem, I recommend giving Parcel a try. Some of the features are premium only, but the cost of a subscription is only $2.99 a year. If you receive packages on even a semi-frequent basis, I assure you that the expense is absolutely worth it.