ICYMI

/eye-see-why-em-eye/

initialism

Meaning

ICYMI is short for “in case you missed it.” It usually appears at the beginning of a post, message, headline, newsletter item, or caption to reintroduce content that was shared earlier or to point readers toward a noteworthy update they may not have seen.[1][3]

1. A label for reposting or resurfacing an earlier article, video, announcement, joke, or social-media post.
2. A lead-in to a recap or highlight that gathers important information for people who missed the original update.
3. A polite attention-getter in emails, newsletters, and organizational posts when the sender wants an older item to receive fresh attention.

Examples

“ICYMI, the full playlist is finally up.”

“ICYMI: red is sus in this group chat.”

“ICYMI, here are the three photos from Saturday's event.”

“Adding this again—ICYMI, the deadline moved to Friday.”

“ICYMI, the recipe uses oat milk instead of cream.”

Origin and spread

ICYMI is formed from the initial letters of “in case you missed it.” The earliest documented modern-sense example located is a July 20, 2000 Usenet post titled “Billy Joel on the Onion (ICYMI).” A Twitter example appears from March 27, 2007, and the initialism became increasingly visible in social-media, news, newsletter, and promotional writing during the 2010s. These records establish early circulation, but they do not prove who coined the expression or that Twitter originated it.

How to use it

ICYMI is informal but widely recognizable in online publishing, social media, email, and workplace updates. It can sound helpful when the material is genuinely worth resurfacing, but repetitive use may feel like a promotional nudge or an excuse to repost the same content. In a formal document, write out “in case you missed it” unless the audience is comfortable with digital shorthand.