Guides · Postmark

Get a Mac notification for Postmark bounces, deliveries and opens

Postmark's webhooks post one JSON record per bounce, delivery, open, click or spam complaint, each tagged with a RecordType. Use it as the type field and a hard bounce is a notification you see, while deliveries are a count you glance at.

Needs: the free EventBar app on your Mac, an EventBar account, and a Postmark account with permission to add webhooks. About five minutes. Generic JSON.

Steps

1. Create the webhook URL. In the EventBar dashboard, open the Webhooks tab, pick the group this belongs to (one group per site or app is the usual shape), choose the provider Generic JSON, name it, and press Create. Copy the URL; it stays visible and can be rotated any time.
2. Paste it into Postmark. In Postmark: your server, then the message stream (Transactional, usually), then Webhooks, then Add webhook. Paste the hook URL, tick Delivery, Bounce, Open and whatever else you want, and save; the page has a send-test button per event. Create the EventBar hook as Generic JSON with type field RecordType; Postmark's Bounce becomes the switch bounce.
3. Trigger one. Most services offer a test delivery; otherwise do the real thing once. It shows up in the dashboard's Events tab within a second and in the menu bar, as an undefined type named after the event. That first one is your proof the wiring works.
4. Make it read well. Press Define on the new type and give it a title and a body template. Fields come from the payload, nested ones with dots. The table below is a starting point.

What you'll see

Every type has its own switch in the menu bar, so a noisy one can be quiet on this Mac and still counted. Counts cover the last hour, 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days and all time.

Worth knowing

• Field names are capitalised exactly as Postmark sends them (RecordType, Recipient); templates are case-sensitive, so keep the capitals.
• Postmark doesn't sign webhooks; it offers basic auth and custom headers instead, which the hook URL doesn't need. The URL is the secret.
• Opens fire per open, including a mail client's preview pane; mute open from the menu bar and keep the count.

The full contract, including how each preset reads a payload and what the answers mean, is in the API docs. Something about Postmark's payload changed? Tell us and we'll fix the guide.