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Posting question in StackExchange for first time. Apologies if this has issues...

Need to track email open.

This is something not very new and the approach generally used is to have a pixel in the HTML which calls a server URL asynchronously. By using this we get the number of opens for an email.

Now the issue is the email is send to a Distribution List (DL) and we have a requirement to track email open and also clearly state who has opened it..

Basically when a hit to server comes, it should says xxxx@mail.com has opened this email.

In my HTML if i have a way by whcih to capture the email headers, my requirement would be sorted... I would use Javascript to get the email headers and then when i call the server URL i will send across the details...

When i searched i found a POST which was doing something similar... Read email headers in Outlook Web Access (OWA)

But this was for office application...

Also, i am not sure whether this would even work...

Any pointers is well appreciated....

I am specifically at the moment looking for exchange server...

Community
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tomcyjohn
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1 Answers1

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In my HTML if i have a way by whcih to capture the email headers

You don't.

I would use Javascript to get the email headers

You can't run JavaScript in an HTML formatted email

The only identifying information you can get back from the email is the information you put it in it in the first place.

You can put a unique ID in a tracking pixel (increasing the chances of it being marked as spam) but that ID will be given to anyone who gets a copy of the email (including if it is forwarded automatically by a mailing list or manually by a reader). The tracking will also fire only if the image is loaded from the server (plenty of people keep email image loading turned off).

There is no way to find out who your email actually ended up with.

Quentin
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