bananatag-intro

A feature many Outlook users adore is the read receipt feature. This lets you know if the recipient of the email has read it or not. For the Gmail user who wants to track emails, there is no built-in option. This means adding an extension like Bananatag is the only way to add this feature.

Previously here on TechNorms, we have talked about another add-on called Spypig. With Bananatag, there is no image embedded into your email so the recipient is none the wiser.

Getting started with Bananatag

When adding a service like Bananatag, you will need to install the Google Chrome extension. If you are using a different email service, browser or Outlook, take a look at their page. You have options, too.

bananatag-install-window

After you have the extension added to Google Chrome, head to your Gmail account and log into it. As soon as the page loads, you will be presented with a pop-up window asking if you want to use Bananatag.

bananatag-permission

When you click yes, you will see a couple of things. First will be a simple tutorial walking you through a few basics.

bananatag-tutorial

Then, next to the search box in your inbox you will have a Bananatag button to access the settings.

bananatag-settings

To see the other changes you will need to go to the Compose screen. What you will see here depends whether or not you are using the new compose option or the classic screen. Both of the buttons work the same. Here are the buttons for both styles.

Classic compose

bananatag-button

New Compose

bananatag-new-gmail-compose

The emailing process is no different other than pressing the Tag or Track and Send button to send the emails. The recipient of the email won’t notice any difference in the email. To view tracking information about the email, you can click on the Bananatag button in your inbox. This will take you to the Bananatag dashboard. You should have received an email from Bananatag with a temporary password so you can log in.

bananatag-login

What you will see on your end is when you log in is the dashboard. Here will be a graph showing various info about the emails sent. You can see if it was opened, what links were clicked in the email (if any) and how many free tracking emails you have left for the day.

bananatag-dashboard

If you are a high volume emailer, you will want to look into the paid version so you can send unlimited emails every vs. 5. The average person does not need to track a lot of emails so this should be good.

bananatag-daily-limit

Conclusion

Overall Bananatag worked well. The speed of Gmail was not slowed down at all from what I could tell. The information about the opened email was not immediate, it took a while to register and show up on the dashboard so keep that in mind when you first start to use it.

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