Remove Subscription thru email

[jlehman1]

Can someone remove thier email by emailing to remove_from_list@email.com?

[DW]

Previously, a CGI script was included with the program to allow users to remove themselves by sending a blank email.  I have removed this script from recent releases, however, due to the fact that if you use form-based subscription a user might subscribe a "catch-all" address that cannot easily be sent "from" to facilitate removal.  This was causing a lot of complaints.

[jlehman1]

I am not sure I understand.  Are you saying a subscriber might use one email for multiple subscriptions and one removal request for one list was causing the removal to occur on multiple lists?

[DW]

What I meant was if someone uses form subscription they could use a "catch-all" email address like newsletterx@domain.com.  Then, if you solely used blank email for unsubscription, the user could not remove themselves because their email client would only be set up to send "From" name@domain.com.

[jlehman1]

What about having the user put the word remove in the subject if they hit reply to an email sent from a specific email list.  So the program would only remove if the email coming in matches a list that has email eclublist@adress.com and remove is in the subject?  This is just me throwing out a suggestion I don't know how hard it is?

[DW]

We will still run into the same problem.  If you use form subscription the user will not be able to remove themselves if they sign up with a catch-all account because they cannot easily send "From" this address.

Instead of using the email approach I highly recommend you include a message code of the type "Remove Link" in your emails to be sure your users can remove themselves.