I have a small mailing list, and I'd like to add an unsubscribe link in the mail. I've tried this in the obvious way:
(1) The message footer contains an unsubscribe link, as shown below, where [email protected] is the plaintext mail address of whoever got this email:
<a href="https://example.com/[email protected]">click here to unsubscribe</a>
(2) example.com runs a simple script (unsubscribe.php) which gets the query string and logs the address.
This works in testing with test mails sent to a number of providers. In real life, of course, it sometime fails when sent to some addresses which appear to be handled by Microsoft (and possibly Virgin mail). In these cases, I get a log entry for a mail address that looks like [email protected]. I know about foo.com, but I have no idea who Zvdufyyf.Wfaavatf is, and so can't unsubscribe them.
I'm assuming that Zvdufyyf.Wfaavatf is auto-generated by a scanner, but I can't immediately see how that helps anybody. The research I've done has led me down a rabbit hole. I've seen advice to use a GUID instead of a plain address, but this answer makes me think that single-click unsubscribe is a dead-end anyway, because aggressive scanners will follow the link and auto-unsubscribe recipients. The proposals in that answer are great, but too much trouble for small non-commercial lists.
So I'm now thinking that the unsubscribe link just takes the recipient to a page where they have to manually enter their mail address. This has always just seemed like laziness when someone else has forced me to do it, but maybe it's the right answer.
Any other ideas on good ways to do this, that won't require me to spend a week writing code?