question I need a free email tracker that actually works.

Streak works very well.

MailTrack worked great for me.

Been using Boomerang for Gmail for about 2 years

Bananatag works great.

indiegrind said:

Streak works very well.

Click to expand...

Jay Ha said:

MailTrack worked great for me.

Click to expand...

Pierre Barnard said:

Been using Boomerang for Gmail for about 2 years

Click to expand...

DrJacoby said:

Bananatag works great.

Click to expand...

none of the email trackers is capable of reliably telling you if your email was opened or how many times it was.

they all are based on a simple and old trick - they insert an image in your email which then is supposed to be downloaded by an email client so tracking server gets hit with a request.

gmail caches all images so even if the image was indeed downloaded you can never say for sure if that was google caching server or the email recipient. that's your case when you got false positive on your unread email.

if your recipient has images turned off in their email client by default the image gets never downloaded. ...and you got false negative
(...so turn images off in your gmail if you dont want to be tracked. very simple.)

if the corporate firewall (as it should) downloads and checks all attachements (incl images) before allowing them in the image gets downloaded anyway even if the email goes directly to spam folder after that. ..and you got false positive

besides that if you use an email tracker with gmail you give them a permission to read and track all your emails which is not a good thing in any case.

if in addition you are on a paid plan you are basically flushing your money down the toilet.. which is sad

I'm actually using mailtrack paid version, streak and boomerang(for email scheduling)

Have used mailtrack for years and trying streak the last few months to see if will be able to replace mailtrack

Despite the above post, all have been very reliable and critical tools in my timing of follow up and negotiations.(seeing whether other side is truly interested). I'm looking at streak over mailtrack for one critical feature, and that is read location/device data.

indiegrind said:

Despite the above post, all have been very reliable

Click to expand...

you want to think so

but their reliability can not be verified - you have to ask every recipient if he really opened the email so many times and at that exact time as the tracker reported. i doubt you did that.

then again - if you use gmail and give full access to your account to some tracking company... you know sooner or later their database with security tokens will leak, got hacked or sold by an underpaid employee on a dark web

...which will result in another post here like:

"My domains stolen
(by requesting a transfer code)
via my hacked gmail account
which no one had access to except me
and i had 153 chars long password
and 5 factor auth protection...

well,
i used 12 browser plugins, 8 gmail extensions,
158 phone apps
(including VPN one that comes from a reliable Chinese web developer)...
but they all looked safe and neat..

who am i to blame now?"


From Streak website:

Streak requests access to the following Google APIs so that our features can work
...

• Gmail (documentation): Streak’s primary interface is in Gmail, and needs these fundamental permissions to let you open, click, reply, track, send later, mail-merge and split email threads.

From Gmail API site where the above link leads:

Gmail API, v1
Scopes
https://mail.google.com/
Read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail

========

you've been warned

4pm said:

you want to think so

but their reliability can not be verified - you have to ask every recipient if he really opened the email so many times and at that exact time as the tracker reported. i doubt you did that.

then again - if you use gmail and give full access to your account to some tracking company... you know sooner or later their database with security tokens will leak, got hacked or sold by an underpaid employee on a dark web

...which will result in another post here like:

"My domains stolen
(by requesting a transfer code)
via my hacked gmail account
which no one had access to except me
and i had 153 chars long password
and 5 factor auth protection...

well,
i used 12 browser plugins, 8 gmail extensions,
158 phone apps
(including VPN one that comes from a reliable Chinese web developer)...
but they all looked safe and neat..

who am i to blame now?"


From Streak website:

Streak requests access to the following Google APIs so that our features can work
...

• Gmail (documentation): Streak’s primary interface is in Gmail, and needs these fundamental permissions to let you open, click, reply, track, send later, mail-merge and split email threads.

From Gmail API site where the above link leads:

Gmail API, v1
Scopes
https://mail.google.com/
Read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail

========

you've been warned

Click to expand...

The email that I use to outbound is not the same email that I use to manage my domains, also not the same as my personal email, and lastly also not the same email I use to sign up to random services on the interwebz. Of course all have different passwords but thanks for the warning.

any other free tool

Any decent mail client should block remote content that is used for tracking, unless you explicitly allow it.
Mine does.

Kate said:

Any decent mail client should block remote content that is used for tracking, unless you explicitly allow it.
Mine does.

Click to expand...

Unless it's a known tracker or a 1x1 image, who do you know it's a tracker ?

Yes, I also don't use various add-ons for GSuite... this is not safe.
The best way - good SMTP with tracking like SendGrid.

And always be ready to get banned by SMTP provider if SPAM reports are higher than their allowed level.
Some of them can ban you even per 1 complaint.

p.s. I don't sell my domains via outbound but tracking of inbound buyers is helpful for me, that's why I use it.

Asfas1000 said:

Unless it's a known tracker or a 1x1 image, who do you know it's a tracker ?

Click to expand...

I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Remote content is not shown by default.
I only click on tracking links or allow remote content when it comes from a source I recognize like a newsletter subscription. Spam goes to trash in the blink of an eye, if it even makes it through to my inbox.

Kate said:

I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Remote content is not shown by default.
I only click on tracking links or allow remote content when it comes from a source I recognize like a newsletter subscription. Spam goes to trash in the blink of an eye, if it even makes it through to my inbox.

Click to expand...

So Kate,
you don't use any open email tracker at all? So how do you know if your end user are interested in your emails to them? If we have the email tracker, we can estimate how
many times they open or not open at all, then from there we estimate if they are interested
or should we contact them at all (if they don't even open at all).

Thank you.

I don't do outbound so I don't need an E-mail tracker.