A quick look at Cortana's package tracking ability in Windows 10

Microsoft's Cortana can already track your flights just by scanning your emails for relevant information. Package tracking has been another feature known to be coming to the digital personal assistant, and it is already semi-functional in Windows 10.

Currently, in Windows 10 (for phone, in this example) Cortana shows the tracking history of a package by just copying in the tracking number. Instead of a redirect to the FedEx or UPS page, the information is presented directly within Cortana's results screen. This behavior differs from Windows Phone 8.1 in that Cortana simply does a Bing search, bringing up the relative carrier's web page.

Presumably, Cortana will eventually scan emails with your permission and surface these tracking results without you having to find them. This function would be similar to how flight tracking currently works.

As to when this all went live, it could have happened weeks ago, although it is just coming to our attention now.

Package tracking is a simple feature but with the combined power of Windows 10 on PC, tablet, and phone, it can become a very powerful daily tool for people. Like many early Cortana features, this ability appears to be US only at the moment, although let us know if you have it working outside of the US.

Thanks, Bruno B., for the tip!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.