Comments on: Uh, didn't get the email?

Question: Uh, didn't get the email?

availablelight — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:26:57 -0800

I have gmail. Is it possible for people using applications like Eudora, Outlook, etc. to know if/when I have "opened" and read emails they have sent to me?

By: borkingchikapa

borkingchikapa — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:30:36 -0800

I don't think so. If they request a return receipt yes, but that only gets sent if you let it.

By: gaby

gaby — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:46:03 -0800

Read Receipts are a special header that is inserted by the mail client when you send the email. Not all applications handle them, but I know that Outlook does, and Thunderbird does as well, by automatically sending an email back to the original sender.

I think it's an M$ specific extension but I'm not certain. I suspect that Google would not implement this feature.

I once setup a mailing system that knew when people opened/read emails by embedding an HTML image into the email that linked to a script. When somebody opened the email, it loaded the image and called the script, and we could thus tell when/how many times they opened the email.

Is this something that you're worried about or something that you're trying to setup?

By: stovenator

stovenator — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:50:13 -0800

There are things like DidTheyReadIt.com that basically work by including a small (usually 1 pixel) image into an email, that is on a remote server. When the HTTP request is made to grab that image, which has a unique name/number for that email, the service then can say that the email was opened.

Now, does Gmail by default open up remote images when it receives an html message? I don't really know. I don't get any emails usually in my Gmail that contain remote images. If it does, then yes - they can tell when you open an email.

By: Jeff Howard

Jeff Howard — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:06:16 -0800

On preview, what stovenator said.... They could also embed a remote image and then check their server logs to see when that image was accessed. That's unrelated to which e-mail program they use, as long as it can compose HTML e-mail.

It doesn't work with Gmail, because it's set not to display external images by default. The message will contain a short bit of text at the top that says "External images are not displayed" and then a link that says "Show external images." If you click that link, then it'll show up in the server log.

By: parma

parma — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 11:43:27 -0800

Outlook 2003 started not loading images embedded in email by default - long overdue. As long as your program does not load images until you tell it to, I see of no way anyone can tell whether you opened an email or not. (Of course, following a link sent in the email is also ill-advised, since that is potentially trackeable as well.)

By: tuxster

tuxster — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:31:10 -0800

Outlook Express also does the same (that is, not load images in advance. You need to explicitly tell it to do so). In addition, if the sender has requested a read-receipt, Outlook Express tells this to you and ask you if you would like to send an acknowledgement, to which I usually say No and I'm sure many other people do the same.

By: availablelight

availablelight — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:19:04 -0800

These answers are great--thanks.