Introduction
One of Mailbird's best productivity tools is undoubtedly its Email Tracking feature.
Before we show you how Email Tracking works in Mailbird, let's take a look at some general facts about Email Tracking.
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The number of emails you can track each month depends on which Mailbird license you own.
- Our Mailbird Free license does not include Email Tracking
- Our Mailbird Standard license allows up to 5 tracked emails per month.
- Our Mailbird Premium licenses allows an unlimited number of tracked emails per month.
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Tracking an email may not always be possible.
- If one of your recipients does not allow remote images to be displayed inside of their email client, then it will not be possible to generate any tracking information because Email Tracking technology relies on a tracking pixel (i.e. an incredibly tiny image embedded within an email).
- Another exception involves any recipients who use Apple Mail with Privacy Protection - in these cases, Mailbird's Email Tracking will show that your email has been opened already, but this is actually a 'false positive', and should not be considered accurate if you know that the recipient uses an Apple device.
- One final limitation involves emails sent from a Microsoft Exchange account to multiple email addresses - for reasons beyond our control, Mailbird will not be able to tell who has opened the email.
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Only you have access to tracking information.
- As a Mailbird customer, you alone will be able to track the emails which you send. In fact, we want to assure you that Email Tracking does not mean that your emails are tracked by us in any way. Only you can can view an email's tracking information.
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Email Tracking does not mean that Mailbird isn't secure.
- No information besides the opening time and who has opened an email can be tracked. Nothing else is either shared or collected, and it works in exactly the same way as with other email clients.
We are keen to reiterate that since we value our customers' privacy, we have designed this feature very strictly, so that it only tracks the following two pieces of information which are only visible to you:
- Who has opened an email.
- When an email was opened.
Not only does Mailbird never share or collect the content of any emails which are sent (whether tracked or untracked), but it also never gathers information on the location of recipients of emails.
How to use Email Tracking
When composing an email, you will find the “Email Tracking” button next to the send button. Simply click on it, as you can see in the red square in the image below:
You can also enable Email Tracking by default in Mailbird menu, located at the top left corner. Go to Settings > Composing and check the box to "Enable Email Tracking by Default"
Email Tracking Status and Notification
Once you send an email with Email Tracking enabled, there are four places where you can check the
Email Tracking status:
- The Email List
- The Preview Window
- Email Tracking Notification Center
- Email Tracking tray notification
Tracking emails via the Email List
To see the Email Tracking status in the Email List, simply hover your mouse over the email. This will give you a general overview of of many have opened the email, and how many have not.
Tracking emails in the Preview Window
If the generic information contained in the pop-out window in the Email List isn't enough detail, then don't worry: we've got that covered!
The icon on the Email List can be clicked to see more details as shown in the image below. This provides much more detailed information, such as how many recipients the email has, a list of their names, and a timestamp of when they opened the email.
You can also see how many recipients have opened the email and how many that has not opened it:
Email Tracking Notification Center
There are also Email Tracking Notifications located in the top right-hand corner of your Mailbird. This shows a list of recent Email Tracking and if you click on one of them, it will display the email that is tracked. You can see this in action in the image below:
Email Tracking Tray Notification
Lastly, you can also get tray notifications for email tracking. You can see how it works in the screenshot below:
If you don't want to get this type of notification, you can turn it off easily by:
- Click on the Mailbird Menu in the top left-hand corner of the page (i.e. the three horizontal lines)
- Click on Settings and then on the General tab
- In the next menu, you can disable tray notification for Email Tracking, as seen below:
Email Tracking Limitation
There is one limitation however in Email Tracking: if you send an email via a Microsoft Exchange account to multiple email addresses, Mailbird will not be able to tell who has opened the email. In this specific case, the email tracking notifications will display as 'unknown' instead of showing the names of the people that have open the email. See an example below:
You can now enjoy the reliability and confidence of knowing that your important emails have been sent and received with Email Tracking in Mailbird.
If you have any questions about our Email Tracking feature, please reach out to us via our Contact Form.