PHP: See if someone has opened email

[Elfreako]

Hi,

I am writing an application that makes use of the phpmailer library to send out emails. I want to track if the email has been opened. Could someone point me to a tutorial on how to do this?

 

[bwana]

I've often wondered - surely that is going to be dependent on the settings on the receiver's end?

 

[Elfreako]

yes it is ~ like if they have HTML on and allow external images to be downloaded. I want to look at best case scenarios where people do have HTML enabled and are able download external images

 

[Mzala]

Hi,

I am writing an application that makes use of the phpmailer library to send out emails. I want to track if the email has been opened. Could someone point me to a tutorial on how to do this?

Not much you can do except setting some variable in the email header.

 

[dabouncer]

Make the mail into a html mail, make a small iframe somewhere and add a refresh script in the iframe which refreshes to a url u supply so you can see who reads the mail. ie : your-domian.com?user=someone&read=1 or something of that sorts. I guess you could achieve something like this by using a javascript code aswell, maybe even an onmouseover event to trigger a specific url.

 

[Kloon]

dabouncer has the solution for your problem, but tel me why you wanna send email using the php mailer? Your email is probably gonna get blocked by every spam filter out there.

 

[Elfreako]

dabouncer has the solution for your problem, but tel me why you wanna send email using the php mailer? Your email is probably gonna get blocked by every spam filter out there.

Erm...phpmailer is pretty good. So long as you fill in a valid "from email address" there is no problem with spam filters.

I got around the issue a slightly different way. I embedded a hidden image in the HTML email which links to a PHP file. The PHP file does the basic tracking

 

[Rikus]

Make the mail into a html mail, make a small iframe somewhere and add a refresh script in the iframe which refreshes to a url u supply so you can see who reads the mail. ie : your-domian.com?user=someone&read=1 or something of that sorts. I guess you could achieve something like this by using a javascript code aswell, maybe even an onmouseover event to trigger a specific url.

In layman's terms = a Trojan

 

[dabouncer]

Your definition and my definition of a Trojan seem to be somewhat different.

 

[Rikus]

Indeed.

 

[BobbyMac]

Erm...phpmailer is pretty good. So long as you fill in a valid "from email address" there is no problem with spam filters.

I got around the issue a slightly different way. I embedded a hidden image in the HTML email which links to a PHP file. The PHP file does the basic tracking

Images are not a good way of doing it as Microsoft outlook's default is to not download images unless instructed. Go the iframe route - it's a lot more accurate. You don't even need the "refresh script" inside the iframe, all you need is the src parameter to be applied.