sniper-link (under development)

What is a sniper link? Let growth.design explain:

A Sniper Link is a special link that makes it easier for new users to confirm their email after a signup. It typically simulates an inbox search, which minimizes distractions while leading users to the inbox of their email service provider detected on signup.

With Sniper Links, your new users will only see YOUR confirmation email in their inbox, nothing else. It works even if you landed in their spam.

This onboarding technique was coined by Dan Benoni in 2019.

Feature Support Table

	Gmail	Outlook	Yahoo	Proton	iCloud
Account scope	✅	✅
From filter	✅		✅	✅
Spam piercer	✅		✅	✅
Time frame (days)	✅		✅	✅
Time frame (hours)	✅			✅

Legend:

• ✅ = Supported by this provider and the script
• *️⃣ = Supported by the provider, but not by the script as yet

Installation

Using the node package manager of your choice, either

yarn add sniper-link or npm install sniper-link

Usage

Subject to change while this script is in an alpha version. Currently it builds three versions:

• A node version in dist/node/index.js
• Web esm for React/Svelte etc dist/web/esm.js
• Web IIFE for native and legacy js dist/web/iife.js

Feature Support Table

	Expects	Required?	Notes
email	String (email)	✅ Yes	User's email inbox to search.
from	String		Sender's email address. Can be an email, or partial match.
forceProvider	String ('google', 'yahoo', 'microsoft', 'proton', 'icloud')		Optional override to skip email provider being detected from the provided string. Useful for when you already know jessie@company.com is using G-Suite under the hood, possibly via a MX lookup.
daysAgo	Number		Sent within the last 'x' days
hoursAgo	Number		Sent within the last 'y' hours. See note below.

• You cannot use a combination of daysAgo and hoursAgo. If hoursAgo are specified, they will be used in preference.
• Yes, you could use forceProvider to make lee@yahoo.com to open mail.google.com -- that's on you.

Example

A node.js example

const buildUrl = require('sniper-link/dist/node');

console.log(
  buildUrl({
    email: 'username@gmail.com',
    from: '@userfront.com',
    daysAgo: 1,
  }),
);

// Logs the following
// {
//   provider: 'google',
//   link: 'https://mail.google.com/mail/u/username@gmail.com/#search/from%3A(@userfront.com)+in%3Aanywhere'
// }

Roadmap

• Return Android and iOS links with app protocols?
• Add a subject/keyword filter (very low priority)?
• Consider more popular non-western email providers

Development

Run either npm run build or yarn build to output to the dist folder

Testing

Run npm run test or yarn test to run tests via Jest. --watch flag supported.

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Disclaimer

I am in no way affiliated with the team at growth.design, I am merely a fan. All credit goes to Dan Benoni for the idea.