Problem with using an HTML form in an email.

Question

I'm sending an HTML email which is only going to be opened using Microsoft Outlook.

Here's the HTML for the email:

<form action='http://server.com/unsubscribe.php' method='post'>
<input type='hidden' name='email' value='".$row1['EmailId']."' />
<input type='submit' value='Unsubscribe me'>
</form>

Here's the code for unsubscribe.php:

<?php
    $id=$_POST["email"];
    echo ($id);
?>

It appears that Outlook never actually calls the PHP script. I verified that it doesn't get called by putting an intentional error in the PHP script and watching the error log and I don't see the error.

I need to give the receiver a way to unsubscribe. What should I do?

Answer 1

You can only call PHP from the webserver, so you need to modify each email you send to be sent with a custom ID.

As Mark Biek said, you might just want to have a URL to a page to unsubscribe rather than a form, especially in an email.

http://example.com/unsubscribe/[email protected]

Then when they click on the link, it would take them to a form on your webpage where you could unsubscribe them.

Answer 2

Outlook will not let you post a form from an email message. It is a security concern. You need to have an unsubscribe link described in one of the comments.