Hey, I built a new toy!.

It’s small and sneaky. It tells me when you open my emails. “For educational purposes, of course. 🤓”

Why? Because I care. I care deeply!!!.

Also, I was bored and slightly power-hungry. You know how it is.

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Now, I won’t bore you with how I built it (or incriminate myself), but

Here’s the basic idea:

• Emails can embed a tiny 1x1 pixel image (usually a gif for tracking).
• When your mail client loads that image, it pings my server.
• My server logs your IP, browser agent, time, location, star sign, mood, and whether you are a flat-Earther 🌎 or not.

Okay okay, maybe not all of that, but… most of it.

Funny thing: it’s surprisingly easy.

All you need is:

1. A server that can log HTTP requests
2. A tiny transparent image
3. A dash of shamelessness Willingness to embed the pixel in your emails (html one’s)

Then just sit back and let the guilt data roll in.

What can you track?

1. If someone opened your email (or at least loaded images)
2. When they opened it
3. How many times (hello, paranoia)
4. Rough geographic location (thank you IP)
5. Their device/browser

Thankfully 4 and 5 are pretty unreliable with gmail and some more (they use an internal proxy).

Why though?

I don’t know. Why do we check if our text has been read? Why do people obsess over blue ticks? Same energy.

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_{✅ GDPR-ish Compliant (if you squint hard enough)
📡 Tracking is strictly for moral superiority and light analytics, not world domination}

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For real, don’t actually do it. Unless, you know… you’re debugging. Or doing research. Strictly research. 🤨