Is there any similar solution to website statistics tracking but for
emails?
reddit / selfhosted

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CrashOverride93 · 2023-12-04 19:26

Hello!

I'm currently using Umami as a web tracking solution for my online
store and blogging platform. It works really well, and help me a lot.

But, do you know if there's any similar selfhosted service for emails?
I mean, to be able to track if an email was opened or not by the user.

​

Thank you!

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Toutanus · 2023-12-04 20:34

The only solution I know : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_pixel.

And I consider it malicious behavior.

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CrashOverride93 · 2023-12-04 21:25

Thank you for replying, and yes, I don't like that way to much.

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pusillanimouslist · 2023-12-05 03:22

Short answer: no.

Long answer, websites and emails work different. To view your website
a client has to connect to your server to request the content, which
you can count trivially. Emails are instead pushed to an inbox, and
whether or not it’s actually opened or delivered to the user’s inbox
or spam folder is completely invisible.

It’s a bit like the difference between counting the number of people
who walked into your store vs. how many people read the flier you
mailed out.

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rrrmmmrrrmmm · 2023-12-05 10:14

Maybe /u/Sensiduct has a solution in Swetrix?

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CrashOverride93 · 2023-12-05 10:29

I can thunk on the following solution: use link shortener and generate
a link per user with an image. Then, you can track it.

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pusillanimouslist · 2023-12-05 15:22

That has been a trick for a long time, and there have likewise been
tricks around it for a long time.

The standard behavior for Gmail for over a decade has been to
automatically load all images on their servers the moment they receive
the email and before they spam filter it, and then modify the email to
use the image cached on their servers. That way you know that it made
it to Gmail, but it totally ruins your ability to determine if an end
user opened it.

Also a lot of email programs disable remote content for this exact
reason, including the built in mail reader for iOS.

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adamshand · 2023-12-05 21:16

The official built in solution is read receipts, which most clients
support (and most have disabled by default).

There are commercial options like Superhuman or Mailspring (open
source).