Is there a reliable way to tell that the email I have sent has been read by the recipient?

The short answer is NO!

There are two main methods used to check whether an email has been read.

• A Read Receipt
• An image in an HTML email.

Both these methods are not reliable and to a certain extent are pointless.

Let’s examine the first method – The Read Receipt.

Users of Outlook can ask for a read receipt that asks the recipient to confirm you have read the email.  This is how to do it.

1. Create a New Email message
2. Click the Options button in the toolbar
3. Tick the box that says Request a read receipt for this message
4. Close the Options box, finish the message and Send in the usual way.

Now when the recipient receives the message they are given a choice to send the read receipt or not.  And that’s the point – They have a choice and many people choose to say NO.  In fact many corporate email servers deny read receipts from the server – not even affording the recipient the choice to say yes or no.

At best a read receipt can be used to comminicate that this email is important to you.  What is completely pointless is setting read receipts in the program (in Tools / Options / Email Options / Tracking Options) so that it is requested for every email you send.  This will serve to annoy many recipients and foul up the Internet with unnecessary traffic.

The second method is slightly more reliable.  Typically used by mass mailing programs, it uses HTML composed email to include an image that is displayed in the email from a remote server.  Sometimes the image is invisible (e.g. a small white dot).  When the image is displayed the time and date can be gathered (even the number of times).  However this technique is used by spamming programmes for the same reasons so many email programs block images until the recipient chooses to show it.  (Which they may choose not to)

Even if you receive a read receipt telling you that the email has been displayed on the recipients computer, it doesn’t prove that they read it.  They may have discarded it before reading or it may have been read by a secretary.

Conclusions

There is no reliable method to check whether an email has been read.

Use read receipts very sparingly for when you want to communicate extra urgent/important emails.

If you would like a person to confirm receipt of an email – ask them in your email message.