Delivery and Read receipt in Apple Mail

This activates read receipts for ALL outgoing messages - regardless of the address from Apple Mail

• Quit Mail

• Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/)

• Enter the following text (make sure to keep all quotes exactly as is!)

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

(In place of "your@address", enter your own email address)

• All future messages sent with Mail will now include the Disposition-Notification-To header which is the one asking for a return receipt.

If you wish to turn off this feature in the future, type the following in the Terminal:

defaults delete com.apple.mail UserHeaders

Keep in mind this is no guarantee the message was actually read by the recipient. It merely indicates the message was opened. It is also the option of the recipient to allow the response the email was read.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Unfortunately, nobody really answered your question. There is a script you can write, which I will post for you once I locate it again. Be back with you, kultaran.

Receipts are not supported in Mail, for good reason.

Receipts are very unreliable since it is up to the recipient whether or not to respond to requests for read/received receipts

And, fwiw, many/most email users disable response to receipts in their email app/program if the program supports receipts. They consider it noone's business whether or not or when they read their email. Also, many email users do not want to inform spammers or other unknown senders when and if their email was read/received so therefore disable this function in their email app.

Take your time. The question is only about two years old. The original poster is not likely waiting for your post. And what I posted still applies.

So it is. Maybe I won't respond. 😉 Anyway, AppleScripts worked for me to obtain read receipts.

Hey Timothy and Bob, maybe one of you could help me. I have a really weird situation. I send and email from my icloud.com address to someone. Sometimes, I will get an email notifying me that the email has been read; but I receive this notification at my gmail.com address. How in the world is this possible???

Never mind. I just discovered where I had Mail set to request read receipts sent to my gmail.com address. This was done with the "Secrets" preference pane I had installed a while back and had forgotten that setting.

Message was edited by: trentwilbanks

My first inclination is that you have setup a 'reply to:' field in your icloud email settings. Another possible scenario is you have, at some point, set up a rule redirecting these read receipts to your gmail.com address, if not for all read receipts, then only from certain individuals. Your thoughts, Bob?

Thanks Timothy. I found the issue. I had installed "Secrets" preference pane a while back and used it to set Mail to request read receipts sent to my gmail.com address. I had forgotten about doing that. Had me bumfuzzled for a while. LOL

Hi Timothy

I also would like to get read receipts through mail.Can you help ? bryan@ffrservices.co.uk

Bryan

Do you realize that read receipts only work if the recipient has his email client configured to reply to and send read receipts? Read receipts for this reason are very unreliable since you won't receive a receipt if the recipient chooses not to send one. The default action and preferred action of recipients is to not send read receipts for security reasons.

Besides, many recipients believe it is no body's business other than their own whether or not and when they read their email.

If you want to set up a request for receipt in a third party email application such as gmail etc., go to the respective email application's web site support area where read receipts will be discussed if the application supports read receipts.

Still not working.

I'm on OS X 10.9.1

Use gmail

Office Mac 2011 - which does not provide Delivery and Read receipt

Followed your instructions, using Apple Mail for gmail, still not working...

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Jessica\'s Apple ID wrote:

Still not working.

I'm on OS X 10.9.1

Use gmail

Office Mac 2011 - which does not provide Delivery and Read receipt

Followed your instructions, using Apple Mail for gmail, still not working...

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

My suggestion is to stop trying to use an unsupported function. Read receipts are not supported in Mail, for good reason. And as already sated a couple of times in this thread, it is not under your control whether a recipient returns a read receipt or not. So if the recipient has control, what good does it do you to request a read receipt? You are wasting your time trying to use read receipts.

For "good reason"?

You use any Chat app like Line or Viber and you get AUTOMATIC receipt statuses that the message is being sent, that it has been sent, that it has been seen.

There is no need for the recipient to do anything other than open the App and click on the chat stream.

I need to know if my shift selections at work have been received by deadline. I need proof of that.

What's the good reason that this cannot be done automatically?