Track Emails

There is no 100% working way of tracking emails mainly because of the limitations of the email protocol. The only option that users have to track emails is to make use of HTML emails. If the recipient of the email turned them off, blocks remote contents, or uses an advanced spam filter there is no way to track emails.
There are basically two options for HTML messages that allow a user to track if a recipient has opened the email in a mail client.
The first is to add an object to the email that has to be loaded to be displayed. This is usually a 1x1 transparent gif image that is loaded from an external server that records a hit if the user opened the email.
A hit is recorded when the image is pulled from the server hosting it. This is the most common form of tracking emails. Users who have configured their email client to display only text messages will not be bothered by the tracking code and the sender will not know if the email has been read. The same is true for antispam software and email servers that filter out code that looks like it was installed for tracking purposes.
The second option is to make the user click on a hyperlink in the email. The web server hosting the link would record that the user clicked on the link and the email sender would know that the email was read. This method has the same limitations that the transparent image method has.
The second method has the added disadvantage that the email recipient needs to click on the link to make it count. It could very well be that he reads the email but does not click on that link.
Users who would like to try the first method can signup for an account at Statcounter or Readnotify (25 read confirmations free). The first provides a tracking code that has to be added to the email. A good way of doing that is to create a signature for that one message and add the code to it.
Readnotify is good for 25 read confirmations only. Users need to signup to track emails and can then add .readnotify.com to the email address. This sends the email through the readnotify email server which appends the transparent image to the email.
A main issue that you may have with this approach is that all mails are transferred through the company's servers. That's a privacy issue as it enables them at least in theory to read all messages that flow through it.
Both use basically the same method to track emails and provide a read notification. Statcounter displays the stats on their website while Readnotify sends the read confirmation by email.
Users who want to protect themselves from tracking emails can change the settings of their email client to display only text messages, or enable the blocking of images on services such as Google Mail.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!