Message Logs - Courier

The Courier Message Logs provide a timeline and insights into the status of your notifications, recipients, lists, and automations. Each step in the send status has a visual representation.

The message logs display key information in the summary view:

The Status of each message send request
The Notification and Recipient associated with each send
The Provider channels for the notification

Message Statuses

Every message in Courier progresses through a series of statuses. The diagram below shows the delivery and engagement lifecycle for a typical message.

Status Lifecycle

Statuses are tracked by two independent systems:

Provider confirmation: DELIVERED depends on your email provider asynchronously confirming that the recipient’s mail server accepted the message. This can be delayed by minutes or hours depending on the provider, and may never arrive at all.
Courier tracking: OPENED and CLICKED are tracked by Courier directly via a tracking pixel and link redirect. They fire as soon as the recipient acts, independent of provider delivery confirmation.

Because these systems operate independently, you may receive OPENED or CLICKED before DELIVERED, or without DELIVERED arriving at all. If you’re monitoring delivery, treat OPENED and CLICKED as confirmation that the message was received.

Delivery Statuses

Status	Description
Queued	Courier has received a valid Send API request and is processing the notification.
Routed	Channel routing is complete; the message is ready for delivery.
Sent	Courier sent the request to the downstream provider. A `200` response from Courier does not guarantee delivery; the provider may still reject the message.
Delivered	The provider confirmed the message was accepted. For email, this means it reached the inbox. For SMS, not all providers return delivery confirmation.
Opened	The recipient opened the notification (email with open tracking enabled, or inbox/push via SDK events).
Clicked	The recipient clicked a link in the notification (requires link tracking enabled).

Processing Statuses

Status	Description
Delayed	The message is scheduled for future delivery.
Digested	The message was added to a digest queue and will be sent as part of a batched notification.
Filtered	The message was filtered out by routing rules, preferences, or send conditions.
Throttled	The message is being rate-limited due to send limits or workspace quota.
Simulated	The message was sent with a mock key, simulating the lifecycle without delivery to the provider.

Error Statuses

Status	Description
Undeliverable	The provider rejected the message or delivery failed.
Unmapped	The Notification ID does not exist or the Event ID is not mapped to a notification.
Unroutable	No valid delivery route was found (e.g., missing recipient address or no configured channels).
Canceled	The message delivery was canceled before being sent.

Has Errors is not a status but a filter indicator showing that the message timeline includes an error response.

Terminal vs. Intermediate Statuses

Courier’s status model is monotonic — a message’s status only moves forward through the lifecycle. Understanding which statuses are terminal (final) and which are intermediate (in-progress) helps you build accurate delivery tracking:

Category	Statuses	Meaning
Intermediate	`ENQUEUED`, `ROUTED`, `SENT`	The message is still being processed or awaiting provider confirmation. These are not final outcomes — a message at `SENT` may still progress to `DELIVERED`, `OPENED`, or `UNDELIVERABLE`.
Terminal (delivery)	`DELIVERED`, `UNDELIVERABLE`	The delivery attempt has a final outcome. `DELIVERED` means the provider confirmed acceptance; `UNDELIVERABLE` means the provider rejected the message or delivery failed.
Terminal (engagement)	`OPENED`, `CLICKED`	The recipient interacted with the message. These can follow `DELIVERED` or even `UNDELIVERABLE` in edge cases (e.g., a security scanner loading the tracking pixel on a bounced email).
Terminal (routing)	`UNROUTABLE`, `CANCELED`, `FILTERED`, `UNMAPPED`	The message never reached a provider.

SENT is not a terminal status. A message at SENT means Courier handed it to the provider, but the provider has not yet confirmed delivery. If a message stays at SENT indefinitely, it typically means delivery tracking is not configured (e.g., missing provider webhooks or polling). Check your provider’s webhook or delivery status configuration.

Channel-Specific Behavior

Event	Email	Push (APNS/FCM)	Inbox	SMS	Chat
Delivered	Provider confirms inbox delivery	Delivery Rate = 100% - Error Rate	Delivery Rate = 100% - Error Rate	Not all providers return delivery status	Provider confirms delivery
Opened	Requires open tracking	Not supported	SDK push events	n/a	n/a
Clicked	Requires link tracking	SDK click events	SDK click events	n/a	Requires link tracking

Inbox and Channel Sync

Notification event states are synchronized between the inbox and other channels within a notification template. For example, if a notification was sent with both inbox and email channels, opening the email will mark the inbox notification as read.

This sync only works one way. Reading an inbox message will not mark an email as opened.

Viewing Logs

Histogram

The logs histogram breaks down delivery metrics for specific days, grouping events in color-coordinated graphs.

You can drag-select within the histogram to filter to a custom date range.

Log Detail View

Click any notification in the list view to open the log details, which includes:

Summary - Message and Recipient IDs, timestamps for each stage (Enqueued, Sent, First Delivery, etc.)
Timeline - Detailed timeline of every step; click any event to view additional details

To investigate errors, click the Error Encountered event in the timeline to review the error message.

Filtering Logs

Filter your message logs to find specific notifications:

Date - Filter by date range (limited by your account’s log retention period)
Recipient - Filter by email address or Recipient ID
Notification - Filter by specific notification template
Status - Filter by one or more statuses: Queued, Sent, Delivered, Opened, Clicked, Undeliverable, Unmapped
Errors - Show only notifications with errors in their timeline
Provider - Filter by one or more integrated providers

Unmapped means the Event ID does not map to a notification or the Notification ID is invalid.

Rendered Content

The Courier Messages API lets you retrieve the rendered output of any notification in your send history. This is useful for debugging and verifying what was actually sent to providers. To fetch the rendered content for a message:

Fetch message history - Use GET /messages/:message_id/history with the message ID from your send response. You can use the history endpoint or the getMessageHistory SDK function.
Fetch message content - Use the root-relative URL from the RENDERED event in the history response, appended to the Courier API host: https://api.courier.com

Rendered Content for Emails

HTML content is returned with content-type: text/html as raw HTML:

content-type: text/html
content-length: 32015
date: Tue, 26 Oct 2021 17:10:10 GMT
x-amzn-requestid: e9d54717-3cb0-4f1e-a47a-b64317738596
access-control-allow-origin: *
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000;includeSubDomains;preload

Log Retention

Courier retains message logs for different periods depending on your account type:

Free and Pro accounts: Logs are retained for 30 days
Contracted accounts: Logs are retained for 1 year

The Log date filter in the Message Logs interface will only allow you to filter and view logs within your account’s retention period. Logs older than the retention period are automatically deleted and cannot be recovered.

Enterprise Customers: If you need longer log retention periods, contact Courier Support to discuss extended retention options.

Troubleshooting Delivery Issues

If a message shows Sent but the recipient hasn’t received it, use the timeline in the log detail view to identify where the problem is:

Check the provider response. Click the Sent event to see the raw response. If the provider returned an error, the details will be here.
Check your provider’s dashboard. Cross-reference the message ID with your provider’s activity feed (SendGrid Activity, Postmark Activity, SES console, etc.) for bounce, block, or deferral events.
Verify sender authentication. Confirm that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are correctly configured for your sending domain.

If the message shows Delivered but the recipient still hasn’t received it, the issue is on the recipient’s side; their mail server accepted the email, but an internal filter or email security gateway may be quarantining it. For a full walkthrough, see How to Debug Email Delivery Issues.

Automation Logs

The Automation logs provide detailed insights into the status of an automation run as well as step details.

Automation Run List

Clicking into one of the automation in log opens the run summary, providing details on each of the steps in the automation.

​Message Statuses

​Status Lifecycle

​Delivery Statuses

​Processing Statuses

​Error Statuses

​Terminal vs. Intermediate Statuses

​Channel-Specific Behavior

​Inbox and Channel Sync

​Viewing Logs

​Histogram

​Log Detail View

​Filtering Logs

​Rendered Content

​Rendered Content for Emails

​Log Retention

​Troubleshooting Delivery Issues

​Automation Logs

​Automation Run List

Message Statuses

Status Lifecycle

Delivery Statuses

Processing Statuses

Error Statuses

Terminal vs. Intermediate Statuses

Channel-Specific Behavior

Inbox and Channel Sync

Viewing Logs

Histogram

Log Detail View

Filtering Logs

Rendered Content

Rendered Content for Emails

Log Retention

Troubleshooting Delivery Issues

Automation Logs

Automation Run List