Read receipts Apple Mail

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Level 1

9 points

Read receipts Apple Mail

I notice that for years, Mac users have been asking for Read Receipt facility in Apple Mail but nothing has happened yet.

I use OS Mojave and saw the Terminal instructions for read receipts but I'm blowed if I can get it to work. Am I making an error in typing or does this not work with Mojave?

The text I am using for the Terminal Entry is:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "John Doe <sender@example.com>"; }'.

Then, type

defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders

Many thanks all

Paul

Posted on Mar 25, 2019 7:55 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,126 points

Mar 26, 2019 9:22 AM in response to paulloseby

But, a read receipt, especially the way you are trying to kludge it to happen, does tell you that the message was read. It will only inform you that the recipient’s email provider processed the email and put it in the recipient’s inbox on the server. It doesn’t tell you in any way that an actual person has even seen the message.

Even if the recipient’s email client could respond to the request, the recipient would have to allow it to respond to you. I don’t know why anyone would enable that feature

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Answer 2

Mar 25, 2019 9:37 AM in response to paulloseby

Hello Paul. I just tried to follow the same instructions for requesting receipts, which I assume you probably found at LiveWire, or at some other site which copied the instructions from LiveWire.

To be honest, I am not sure if it is working or not, because while I did get the error message which they mention -- that is, "The domain/default pair of (com.apple.mail, UserHeaders) does not exist," -- and then followed what they said to do after that, in the Terminal feedback, I am getting nothing like "{Bcc = "bcc@example.com"; },". So as I said, I am not sure.

In addition, I am wondering if that same command can be run for three different email addresses, or if it is just restricted to one address.

The reason why I am doubtful that it is working, is because I sent myself three messages from one of my email addresses to another one of my email address. That is, from two different email servers. I did not receive a single read request.

While I am sure you probably already know this, in the above, you are replacing "John Doe <sender@example.com>" with your actual name and email address, right? I imagine you typed that way to protect your own privacy, right?

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2019 11:07 AM in response to paulloseby

I would not advocate for RR. Historically it was somebodies great idea however in todays climate there is an advanced an evolving etiquette that is quite contrary to the notion.

It basically tells you nothing in reality, no legal implications and if anything helps the spammers.

I would try and get past the desire. This discussions goes way back for years now—

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8307551

If you can not live without it, then you can explore Outlook for Office 365, Outlook 2019.

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Answer 4

paulloseby Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2019 9:12 AM in response to leroydouglas

The reason that RR is important to me is that I make 'Regimental Bullet pens' and personalise these. Often people forget to add the details they want so I have to write to them. These are free additions and enhances the pens but if I don't know what they want, I can't put the names etc on the pen. It is a pain having to write and write and write trying to get the information. If I knew that they had received and read my email, that would be fine. If you hear nothing, did it arrive or not - did it go in their spam folder or not? I do have Outlook 365 but you need a premium business account. You do get the facility on Outlook for Windows but I like my Mac and I assume you all do too, to be on this forum. I can get an Exchange account but again, it all costs a considerable amount of money. Why should I be penalised for having a Mac?

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Answer 5

paulloseby Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 26, 2019 9:18 AM in response to WordWeaver777

Yes many thanks - I've tried all that and put my own details in and been particular with the quotation marks etc. I can only assume this is a facility that Apple Mail will not support.

I did try Newton which gives you delivery and read receipts, but you have to use their message template for your emails. It seemed perfect but within a day of my signing up for the free trial and giving my account details, I received an email 'From me' (right clicking on the email address still gave me my details), telling me that the sender had hacked into my email account - and wanting money of course. I have never had this before and it seemed strange that it should happen the day after putting my email password on this other program. It seemed to be the solution

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Read receipts Apple Mail

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