Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

How to get a DELIVERY / READ CONFIRMATION after sending an email

What can I do to receive a delivery confirmation or confirmation if my sent mail has been read by the addressee? Thanks for the support!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 10, 2011 2:12 AM

Reply
5 replies

Feb 10, 2011 2:48 AM in response to grunzstrunz

You can't, reliably. First, it's not a standard part of email. Second, the person you send mail to has to actually use an email program which supports that feature (it's pretty much just Outlook), and then turn it on. And if they use webmail (eg, through Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc), there's no such feature. So there's no way of knowing, if you don't get a receipt back, whether the email wasn't read, or if the person didn't use a compatible email program.

Matt

Feb 10, 2011 3:47 AM in response to grunzstrunz

Hello,

You can ask for a delivery receipt by this way:

In terminal app, enter:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "user@domain.com"; }'

where user@domain.com is the account mail adress.

This work fine except that it'll don't work if you send a mail to... Apple mail 😉 or some other apps that don't support receipt, but using this tip you'll sometime receive read notification 😉

If terminal is a trouble, use notification4mail you can find at http://www.logimac.net/index.html .

Regards

Fred

Feb 10, 2011 7:01 AM in response to grunzstrunz

In addition to what the other posters have said, many people, including myself, believe it is no one's business if and when I read my email. So many, if not the majority of recipients, will turn off their email's setting to respond to email read requests.

I will read my email or not whenever I wish. It is not the sender's business. Especially if the email comes from a spammer. Why on earth would I send a read receipt?

Feb 10, 2011 3:26 PM in response to grunzstrunz

One easy way, and it will probably give you a better success rate of getting acknowledgements without getting recipients mad at you by having embedded an automated read receipt request header into your email, is to make a signature that politely says that it is important to you to know that your email has been received/read, and that you would really appreciate an acknowledgement, so could the recipient please press the Reply and Send buttons, and tell them thank you very much. Then add that signature to those emails for which you would like a receipt.

How to get a DELIVERY / READ CONFIRMATION after sending an email

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.