Bug: Unable to filter emails containing "+" character in API

Hi @popsmash,

Great question. I love the + trick for emails–I use it all the time and I know I’ve triggered events via the API with profiles with a  + in their email.

I gave this a go with the link you shared (thanks for that, didn’t know about that filter syntax) and although it’s not working with a +, it’s working for me when I URL encode it to %2B. Try URL encoding again!! I didn’t encode the whole email address–just the +.

Request URL: https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles?filter=equals(email,"testing%2B123@example.com")

Cheers,

Kevin.

Hey @KeviSunshine, thanks for hoping in and checking this!

So wild that it still doesn’t work for me, even with %2B.

I’ll have to think about what else could be going on here...

Could you post a screenshot of Klaviyo profile page for the profile with email user+test@popsmash.com ?

@saulblum oh that is a fake email posted here for demonstration purposes.

Real examples below...

Works

Does not work

Profile exists

@popsmash Odd, usually encoding a plus sign to %2b does the trick. I assume lowercase vs. uppercase B shouldn’t matter.

@saulblum lowercase %2b also does not work, still behaving like a bug for me. Are you using revision 2023-02-22?

For anyone else affected, this is still a bug in v2023-06-15 of the API:

[1] https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email&filter=any(email,["fjarrett+47@gmail.com"])

{
  "data": [
  ],
  "links": {
    "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields%5Bprofile%5D=email&filter=any(email,%5B%22fjarrett+47@gmail.com%22%5D)",
    "next": null,
    "prev": null
  }
}

[2] https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email&filter=any(email,["fjarrett%2B47@gmail.com"])

{
  "data": [
  ],
  "links": {
    "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields%5Bprofile%5D=email&filter=any(email,%5B%22fjarrett%252B47@gmail.com%22%5D)",
    "next": null,
    "prev": null
  }
}

But we can see the email exists when querying the whole list:

https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email

{
  "data": [
    {
      "type": "profile",
      "id": "01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K",
      "attributes": {
        "email": "fjarrett+47@gmail.com"
      },
      "relationships": {
        "lists": {
          "links": {
            "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K/relationships/lists/",
            "related": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K/lists/"
          }
        },
        "segments": {
          "links": {
            "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K/relationships/segments/",
            "related": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K/segments/"
          }
        }
      },
      "links": {
        "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GV92V6MQMSWMWYDVJQWGPP9K/"
      }
    },
  ],
  "links": {
    "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields%5Bprofile%5D=email",
    "next": null,
    "prev": null
  }
}

Filtering emails that do not have a “+” character works perfectly fine:

https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email&filter=any(email,["hello@popsmash.com"])

{
  "data": [
    {
      "type": "profile",
      "id": "01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT",
      "attributes": {
        "email": "hello@popsmash.com"
      },
      "relationships": {
        "lists": {
          "links": {
            "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT/relationships/lists/",
            "related": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT/lists/"
          }
        },
        "segments": {
          "links": {
            "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT/relationships/segments/",
            "related": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT/segments/"
          }
        }
      },
      "links": {
        "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/profiles/01GVCM533GG3VAFYB6R31NH9VT/"
      }
    }
  ],
  "links": {
    "self": "https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields%5Bprofile%5D=email&filter=any(email,%5B%22hello@popsmash.com%22%5D)",
    "next": null,
    "prev": null
  }
}

Hi @popsmash!

I will forward this to our product team and get back to the thread as soon as possible!

- Brian

Thanks @Brian Turcotte, we appreciate it!

Hey @popsmash! I think you need to use encodeURIComponent (or your language’s equivalent) on the query param value in order to account for special characters like a “+”. 

Given your example of 

https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email&filter=any(email,["fjarrett+47@gmail.com"])
 

Using Javascript, if you call encodeURIComponent(`any(email,["fjarrett+47@gmail.com"])`), you get `any(email%2C%5B%22fjarrett%2B47%40gmail.com%22%5D)`

If you then append that to the query string, and call GET https://a.klaviyo.com/api/lists/VFMwXV/profiles?fields[profile]=email&filter=any(email%2C%5B%22fjarrett%2B47%40gmail.com%22%5D), do you get the result you’re expecting?

See  our guide on filtering as well as this SO post for more details on encoding.