How to tell if recipient opens email

First enter this in Terminal (all on one line), which will request your recipient's e-mail program to send you a read receipt:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "your@email.address.here"; }'

Then, contact your recipient(s) and ask them to configure their e-mail programs to respond to receipt requests. Most e-mail programs have this turned off by default, if it is even possible to turn it on at all.

That last step is key; you won't get any read receipts if your recipients' e-mail programs aren't set up to respond to the requests. If someone asked me to enable any such feature on my e-mail program I'd respond with a polite no, because I consider it nobody's business but my own whether or not I have read my e-mail.

Whilst you can configure your end to request a read receipt, if the
recipient disables the sending of the receipt there is nothing you
can do... probably not what you wanted to hear but ultimately it
is the recipient who has control of this.

Dave

mmajor wrote:
If I remember, Eudora or Outlook had this feature without having the recipient configure their email. Maybe I need to switch.

No, if your recipient has not configured his e-mail program to respond to receipt requests, they will not be sent and you will not get them, period. It matters not one bit what e-mail program you are using on your end.

If it's an important e-mail and it's critical to know if it was received, a telephone call is the best way to get that confirmation.

What do you mean, "Terminal"?

Terminal is a command line utility. You can find it with Finder by going to /Applications/Utilities. Or just use Spotlight to find and open it.