Parse Bounced Email (delivery-report) and Read Receipt

Read Receipt

Some e-mail applications, such as Microsoft Office Outlook, employ a read-receipt tracking mechanism. A sender selects the receipt request option prior to sending the message. Upon opening the email, each recipient has the option of notifying the sender that the message was opened and read.

However, there is no guarantee that you will get a read-receipt. Some possible reason are that very few e-mail applications or services support read receipts, or simply because users disable the functionality. Those do support read-receipt aren't necessarily compatible with or capable of recognizing requests from a different e-mail service or application

Delivery Receipt and FailureRepor

It is also called a DSN (delivery service notification), which is a request to the recipient’s email server to send you a notification about the delivery of an email you've just sent. The notification takes the form of an email, and will tell you if your delivery succeeded (Delivery Receipt), failed, got delayed (Failure Report).

Parse Report

For an email campaign application, one of the most important tasks is to detect if the email is received by recipient or not. Parsing the delivery report is a common way to get the email status. EAGetMail ActiveX Object provides a built-in function (GetReport) to parse the report. The following sample demonstrates how to parse the delivery-report.

If ReporType is DeliveryReceipt or ReadReceipt, the report probably has only OriginalSender, OriginalRecipient and OriginalMessageID information in the report, it depends on the mail server that generated the report.

Example

[Visual Basic 6.0, VBScript, Visual C++, Delphi] The following example demonstrates how to parse the delivery report with EAGetMail POP3 & IMAP4 ActiveX Object. To get the full samples of EAGetMail, please refer to Samples section.

[Visual Basic 6.0]
Private Sub ParseReport(ByVal emlFile As String)

    Const FailureReport = 0
    Const DeliveryReceipt = 1
    Const ReadReceipt = 2
    Const Receipt_Deleted = 3
    Const DelayedReport = 4

    Dim oMail As New EAGetMailObjLib.Mail
    oMail.LicenseCode = "TryIt"
    oMail.LoadFile emlFile, False

    If Not oMail.IsReport Then
        MsgBox "this is not a report"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    Dim oReport As EAGetMailObjLib.MailReport
    Set oReport = oMail.GetReport()
    // Get report type
    Select Case oReport.ReportType
    Case DeliveryReceipt
        MsgBox "This is a deliver receipt"
    Case ReadReceipt
        MsgBox "This is a read receipt"
    Case Receipt_Deleted
        MsgBox "This is a unread receipt, this email was deleted without read!"
    Case DelayedReport
        MsgBox "This is a delayed report, this email will be tried later by server automatically!"
    Case Else
        MsgBox "This is a failure report"
    End Select

    // Get original message information
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalSender
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalRecipient
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalMessageID

    If oReport.ReportType = FailureReport Or oReport.ReportType = DelayedReport Then
        MsgBox oReport.ErrCode
        MsgBox oReport.ErrDescription
        MsgBox oReport.OriginalSubject
        MsgBox oReport.ReportMTA

        Dim oHeaders As EAGetMailObjLib.HeaderCollection
        Set oHeaders = oReport.OriginalHeaders
        Dim i, nCount As Integer
        nCount = oHeaders.Count
        For i = 0 To nCount - 1
            Dim oHeader As EAGetMailObjLib.HeaderItem
            Set oHeader = oHeaders.Item(i)
            MsgBox oHeader.HeaderKey & ": " & oHeader.HeaderValue
        Next
    End If

End Sub


[VBScript]
Sub ParseReport(emlFile)

    Const FailureReport = 0
    Const DeliveryReceipt = 1
    Const ReadReceipt = 2
    Const Receipt_Deleted = 3
    Const DelayedReport = 4

    Dim oMail
    Set oMail = CreateObject("EAGetMailObj.Mail")
    oMail.LicenseCode = "TryIt"
    oMail.LoadFile emlFile, False

    If Not oMail.IsReport Then
        MsgBox "this is not a report"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    Dim oReport
    Set oReport = oMail.GetReport()
    //get report type
    Select Case oReport.ReportType
    Case DeliveryReceipt
        MsgBox "This is a deliver receipt"
    Case ReadReceipt
        MsgBox "This is a read receipt"
    Case Receipt_Deleted
        MsgBox "This is a unread receipt, this email was deleted without read!"
    Case DelayedReport
        MsgBox "This is a delayed report, this email will be tried later by server automatically!"
    Case Else
        MsgBox "This is a failure report"
    End Select

    //get original message information
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalSender
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalRecipient
    MsgBox oReport.OriginalMessageID
    
    If oReport.ReportType = FailureReport  Or oReport.ReportType = DelayedReport Then
        MsgBox oReport.ErrCode
        MsgBox oReport.ErrDescription
        MsgBox oReport.OriginalSubject
        MsgBox oReport.ReportMTA
        
        Dim oHeaders
        Set oHeaders = oReport.OriginalHeaders
        Dim i, nCount As Integer
        nCount = oHeaders.Count
        For i = 0 To nCount - 1
            Dim oHeader
            Set oHeader = oHeaders.Item(i)
            MsgBox oHeader.HeaderKey & ": " & oHeader.HeaderValue
        Next
               
    End If

End Sub


[Visual C++]
#include "stdafx.h"
#include <windows.h>

#include "eagetmailobj.tlh"
using namespace EAGetMailObjLib;

void ParseReport(LPCTSTR lpszEmlFile)
{
    const int FailureReport = 0;
    const int DeliveryReceipt = 1;
    const int ReadReceipt = 2;
    const int Receipt_Deleted = 3;
    const int DelayedReport = 4;

    IMailPtr oMail;
    oMail.CreateInstance(__uuidof(EAGetMailObjLib::Mail));
    oMail->LicenseCode = _T("TryIt");
    oMail->LoadFile(lpszEmlFile, VARIANT_FALSE);

    if(oMail->IsReport == VARIANT_FALSE)
    {
        _tprintf(_T("This is not a report"));
        return;
    }

    // get report type
    IMailReportPtr oReport = oMail->GetReport();
    switch(oReport->ReportType)
    {
    case DeliveryReceipt:
        _tprintf(_T("This is a delivery receipt\r\n"));
        break;
    case ReadReceipt:
        _tprintf(_T("This is a read receipt\r\n"));
        break;
    case Receipt_Deleted:
        _tprintf(_T("This is a unread receipt, this email was deleted without read!\r\n"));
        break;
    case DelayedReport:
        _tprintf(_T("This is a delayed report, this email will be tried later by server automatically!\r\n"));
        break;
    default:
        _tprintf(_T("This is a failure delivery report\r\n"));
        break;

    }

    // get original message information
    _tprintf(_T("OriginalSender: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalSender);
    _tprintf(_T("OriginalRecipient: %s\r\n"), (TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalRecipient);
    _tprintf(_T("OriginalMessageID: %s\r\n"),(TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalMessageID);

    if(oReport->ReportType == FailureReport || oReport->ReportType == DelayedReport)
    {
        _tprintf(_T("ErrCode: %s\r\n"), (const TCHAR*)oReport->ErrCode);
        _tprintf(_T("ErrDescription: %s\r\n"), (const TCHAR*)oReport->ErrDescription);
        _tprintf(_T("OriginalSubject: %s\r\n"), (const TCHAR*)oReport->OriginalSubject);
        _tprintf(_T("ReportMTA: %s\r\n"), (const TCHAR*)oReport->ReportMTA);

        IHeaderCollectionPtr oHeaders;
        oHeaders = oReport->OriginalHeaders;
        int count = oHeaders->Count;
        for(int i = 0; i < count; i++)
        {
            IHeaderItemPtr oHeader;
            oHeader = oHeaders->Item(i);
            ::_tprintf(_T("%s: %s\r\n"),
                (TCHAR*)oHeader->HeaderKey, (TCHAR*)oHeader->HeaderValue);
        }
    }
}


[Delphi]
const
    // Report Type
    FailureReport = 0;
    DeliveryReceipt = 1;
    ReadReceipt = 2;
    Receipt_Deleted = 3;
    DelayedReport = 4;

procedure ParseReport(fileName: WideString);
var
    oMail: TMail;
    oReport: IMailReport;
    oHeaders: IHeaderCollection;
    i: Integer;
begin
    oMail := TMail.Create(Application);
    oMail.LicenseCode := 'TryIt';

    oMail.LoadFile(fileName, false);

    if not oMail.IsReport then
        begin
            ShowMessage('This is not a report!');
            exit;
        end;

    oReport := oMail.GetReport();
    if oReport.ReportType = DeliveryReceipt then
        ShowMessage('This is a deliver receipt!')
    else if oReport.ReportType = ReadReceipt Then
        ShowMessage('This is a read receipt!')
    else if oReport.ReportType = Receipt_Deleted then
        ShowMessage('This is a unread receipt, this email was deleted without read!')
    else if oReport.ReportType = DelayedReport then
        ShowMessage('This is a delayed report, this email will be tried later!')
    else
        ShowMessage('This is a failure report!');

    // Get original message information
    ShowMessage(oReport.OriginalSender);
    ShowMessage(oReport.OriginalRecipient);
    ShowMessage(oReport.OriginalMessageID);

    if (oReport.ReportType = FailureReport) or (oReport.ReportType = DelayedReport) then
        begin
            ShowMessage(oReport.ErrCode);
            ShowMessage(oReport.ErrDescription);
            ShowMessage(oReport.OriginalSubject);
            ShowMessage(oReport.ReportMTA);
            oHeaders := oReport.OriginalHeaders;
            // Parse original email headers.
            for i := 0 to oHeaders.Count - 1 do
                begin
                    ShowMessage(oHeaders.Item(i).HeaderKey + ':' +
                        oHeaders.Item(i).HeaderValue);
                end;
        end;

end;

Online Tutorials

Parse Non-Delivery Report (NDR) in VB6 - Tutorial
Parse Non-Delivery Report (NDR) in Delphi - Tutorial
Parse Non-Delivery Report (NDR) in VC++ - Tutorial