How to request a read receipt in Microsoft Outlook and know when someone has opened your email

Dave Johnson

Jun 13, 2020, 00:03 IST

How to request a read receipt in Microsoft Outlook and know when someone has opened your email

You can request a read receipt in Outlook, but the emailing tool might not always work.NicoElNino/Shutterstock

You can request a read receipt in Outlook, which informs you when a recipient opens an email you have sent.
Read receipts are not always reliable, because not all email programs and services support them. Also, the recipient can decline to send the read receipt.
You can send a read receipt using the Options ribbon in an email message or turn on read receipts for all messages using Outlook's Options settings.

When you send someone an email, you don't know when it gets read. So if you don't get a reply, it's hard to tell if it was ever read at all.

Outlook offers a "read receipt" tool to help you know when the recipient has opened your email. A read receipt is a brief automated reply that confirms for you that an email has been opened.

How to request a read receipt in Outlook 1: There is also an option to request a delivery receipt, but that feature generally only works if you are using a Microsoft Exchange email account.

You can opt to request it with a single email, or if you want to use it all the time, you can force all outgoing emails to request a read receipt, so you don't need to do it by hand each time.

While handy, it's far from foolproof. The recipient has the option to refuse to send the read receipt, and some email programs disregard read receipts entirely. Nonetheless, if you want to send an email with a read receipt, here are two ways to do it.

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How to request a read receipt in Outlook for a single email

1. Launch Outlook and draft a new email message.

2. Before you send the email, click "Options" at the top of the message window.

3. Click the checkbox for "Request a Read Receipt."

4. Send the message. You will receive an automated email reply.

How to request a read receipt in Outlook for every email you send

1. In Outlook, click "File."

2. Then click "Options."

3. In the Outlook Options dialog box, click "Mail" in the navigation pane on the left.

4. In the "Tracking" section, find the section labeled "For all messages sent, request:" and then click the checkbox for "Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message."