margaux Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Is it possible to programmatically check if an email has been delivered? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 No and yes. There's no way to check via php on your server. However, there is a hack involving referencing an image via a proxy script, which can work; but, I (and I assume a proportion of other users on the internet) have set my email client not to show images automatically for emails sent by people not on my contacts list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted August 27, 2012 Share Posted August 27, 2012 You also have to distinguish between "delivered", which could mean either received by the server, and "received" which could mean loaded in the user's mail client. Which is also different from "opened". Which is also different from "read". The only reliable indicator is having the user do something, such as click a link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
margaux Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 Thanks Rob and Larry for your replies. I've posted this query on other forums and googled numerous variations on this theme. Generally the responses have been what I originally suspected - that there is no easy way to do this. The client is not concerned if the email is read, only that it is delivered as in Larry's definition above (which btw it is helpful to distinguish between delivered and received). As the client is sending a high volume of emails, it is not efficient to request read receipts or use the image hack which rob refers to. One option which I found on another forum is... If you have detailed SMTP logging enabled, you can verify that a message was delivered. You can search by the RECEIVING e-mail address and read the logs to make certain the message was accepted by the server that receives messages for the receiving domain. Whilst not appropriate for my particular circumstance, this might be useful in a different situation. Anyway, learned a little in the search and this may be of use for someone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Thanks for sharing what you learned! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 Yeah, thanks margaux good share, learn something new everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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