Weekly Product Update: New Events API Available For Private Beta

Posted on August 2, 2013.

We believe in giving our customers full transparency into what is happening with their emails. That is why we show our customers what is happening with each and every email that gets sent or received through Mailgun with Logs.

Recently, we’ve been working on improving log data by giving customers even more data and enhancing the experience of retrieving that data. Like almost all features at Mailgun, the first interface we build is the API, with the GUI to follow. We are pleased to announce the private beta release of our Events API, which will be the foundation for Logs and other reporting in the future.

So how did we improve on Logs?

Better pagination

Previously, we just had simple skip and limit parameters to specify which portions of the logs you wanted to fetch. This was cumbersome and resulted in poor performance characteristics. With the new Events API, we’ve provided parameters that allow you to specify a time period in addition to the ability to specify ascending or descending. We also provide URLs in the response for retrieving the next and previous pages, giving you the ability to easily traverse log data.

Allow for detailed querying with filter expressions

Previously, you could only fetch all of the log data within the specified skip and limit parameters. Then you’d have to filter the data on your side. The Events API allows for filtering the data by a bunch of additional parameters and the ability to combine expressions in order to create complex queries.

Include more events

Previously, with the Logs API, we only included information that happens to your email until it is accepted by the recipient email server or dropped. You could get the other events through the Campaigns API but we thought it would better to include all events in one easy to use API. The Events API allows you to query for all events, including those that occur after delivery like opens, clicks, unsubscribes and spam complaints.

How much does this awesome API cost?

Free for you my friend. For free accounts, we retain events for 2 days. For paid accounts, we retain events for 30 days. If you need retention for longer than that, contact us to discuss your needs.

How can I try out the new API?

If you are interested in playing with the Events API, feel free to send us an email: events-api@mailgun.net with your github handle and we’ll give you access to the private docs.

We hope this release dramatically improves the experience of tracking your emails. Please provide any feedback!

Happy sending! Mailgunners