paulr

Basically,i send out a lot of emails that never get answered.Is there a way od telling the difference between those that dont get through,and those that get read but ignored.

I often get emails that require a receipt to be sent.How do you do that?

cheers
Paul.

mike1210

i assume you are on a domain, using outlook and an exchange server, if not you can slap me later

in outlook (this is on 2003 may be different on a newer one)

select new mail, just above the To where you put the address in there should be an options tab, click this and there should be a tracking option where you can ask for reciepts to be sent once email has been read, they dont have to send one back however.

edited to add, this only works on exchange servers as far as i know. For things like hotmail it wouldn't work

stevencotton

There's no provision for read receipts at all in the SMTP specification, so it won't work.

paulr

win xp,outlook express.

stevencotton

Makes no difference what OS and MUA you are using, the SMTP protocol doesn't support it. Even if you sent mails exclusively to/from Exchange servers, those proprietary headers will potentially be filtered by smarthosts and all sorts. ISPs don't use Exchange for their customers' email.

stevem2k

you could ring them all to check ?

paulr

Okay thanks.
How do other people get this to work then?

MJW

When you're composing a new message in Outlook Express, click the 'Tools' menu and click 'Read Request Receipt'. A tick should appear next to it.
When the recipient receives the mail, a window will pop up asking the recipient if he wants to send a receipt and give the option of yes or no. Not really a foolproof method but its a start ..

paulr

Thanks,and thanks Mike for the same advice.

If thats the best there is its a start.
Cheers.

stevencotton

They don't, there's no mechanism to support it, not including proprietary software installed on private networks.

AER-SCOOBY

I think you find it does work! I have been using them since year dot dot. It is a feature in Outlook and is supported on Exchange. I use it, set it, up and I KNOW it works.

stevencotton

No, you're not reading what I'm writing.

There is no provision for email read receipts in the SMTP specification. Exchange is proprietary and uses non-standard headers, Microsoft have extended the functionality of Exchange over what the SMTP specification (and therefore the rest of the world outside of MS) describes. Anyone can stick any kind of header they like in their emails, but that doesn't mean they will be honoured.

Some Windows clients _always_ send read receipt headers whether the user requests it or not (as in Outlook 2000). Doesn't seem like a lot, but just imagine hundreds of thousands of people doing it, the traffic adds up. A lot of ISPs may strips these "Read-Receipt-To:" and "Disposition-Notification-To:" headers because they are useless to any MTA _except_ Exchange, which ISPs do not use for providing email services to end users.

mike1210

steve,
we were not arguing about the SMTP protocol itself, Paulr stated he gets requests to send read reciepts so I assumed they were internal mails on his own domain. Exchange defo supports this function, external mails is a different matter however.

edited to add, just sent a mail externally from one academic place to another and had a read reciept

boomer

Real men don't use Outlook

mb

Soulgirl

The easiest option is to use MessageTag

I do, and as soon as the email is received by the recipient I get a receipt and they don't even know it

The trouble with the inbuilt read-receipts is that the recipient has to click that they accept to send a receipt don't they?

There is a free version but I opted to pay the small fee to upgrade so that I didn't have to display the footer message keeping my actions a secret LOL.

www.msgtag.com

mike1210

The trouble with the inbuilt read-receipts is that the recipient has to click that they accept to send a receipt don't they?

Yes they still have to click, however I sent a few external emails yesterday, one had the ability to send reciepts and one didn't however the exchange server replied and said the email had been delivered. Stevem2k had the right idea, you could ring them to check and shout abuse down the phone asking "why the F**K don't you reply to my emails", they shouldn't ignore you in the future

davegtt

If Im sending mails from my work address and unsure if its working I send 1 to my hotmail and see how long it takes to come through

ozzy

Steve is correct. You simply can't enforce a receipt using SMTP.

If someone sends me an e-mail from Outlook and requests a receipt I can simply chose to ignore the request (Outlook also) and it doesn't work.

You could argue it's splitting hairs, but the point is you can't gaurantee it will work. You always have to rely on the remote client accepting the request and returning the receipt acknowledgement.

Stefan

john sugar

Do you not think that maybe people just dont like you ???

Soulgirl

But you can rely on www.msgtag.com

stevencotton

Heh, that msgtag thing is amusing. Their ads on their index seem to be of sad people who are upset they don't get any email:

"High school reunion website ... And then I came across Jessica's profile. It listed her email address and that she was single! I psyched myself up and sent her an email hoping we could catch up. I send it, and then I wait.

Two weeks later and there's still no reply and suddenly I'm reliving high school ..."

That's because you're a weird-arsed paranoid freaked-out stalker mate! Bad software, won't work on a lot of MUA's either.

mike1210

Ozzy, I think this is down interpreting the question.

Yes steve IS correct in what he is saying in that there is no way to force a reciept using SMTP. This was never in dispute. It was about the program not the protocol

However it IS possible to request for a reciept to be sent, and yes it can be ignored as I stated in my first post "they dont have to send one back". It can work externally on exchange servers, but not always as it depends on their end.

So not an iron clad method but good enough I feel, could of course install CCTV behind all the machines then watch the footage to prove it, however i feel thats a bit overkill

Soulgirl

Why is it bad? It works as I use it. Irrespective of the hype on the site I find it an invaluable tool when sending emails that I need a receipt for.

ozzy

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. As you say, you can easily request the receipt but unfortunately it's no guarantee it will work.

I know with some of our clients the delivery receipts work, but read receipts (to external mailers) are disabled for the entire corporation.

Certainly worth trying if you have an Outlook client and it's better than nothing.

Stefan

ChrisB

It's bad as it fringes privacy and it relies on image references embedded into HTML mails. What happens if somebody turns off HTML entirely or, like Outlook 2003 is set as a default, doesn't load images in HTML mail unless requested?

stevencotton

Just because you use it doesn't make it any good! Sounds as if it's just adding an image into the body. Won't work on any console based MUA. It also means the company that makes it are aware of all the email being tracked too, since the info is sent to their servers and then onto you.

They also don't seem to have a clue what they are really doing.

"We've discovered that most people are resigned to the uncertainty of email, and are unaware that solutions exist."

No solutions exist at all, theirs is a kludge.

"As the name suggests, MSGTAG adds a small tag to your outgoing email. When your friend opens the email, the tag notifies the MSGTAG server, which in turn lets you know that the message has been viewed. MSGTAG notification tells you four things: That the message has been opened, the time that it was opened, the time it was sent, and what the delay has been in between."

Hell will freeze over before I send that information to a third party.

"We won't tell you how long it was looked at, how many times it has been looked at, the physical location of the recipient or their IP address, because we think this is an invasion of privacy. Not to mention dangerous."

Well, they _can't_ tell you how long someone has been looking at it, so that's just a lie. Physical location is also impossible to tell.

Also, for all those people that read mail offline on a PDA or laptop it won't work either, since it requires an Internet connection at the time of reading the email.

Email is not a secure or guaranteed communication method. If you have a need for confirming whether people get messages or not, pick up the phone, or send a recorded letter.

Soulgirl

Well it might be that paulr will be happy with this solution rather than your 'professional jargoned' responses

Edit: and just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's not good.

boomer

So, MSGTAG doesn't work when sending via Exchange mail server, or AOL, or Hotmail, or Yahoo!, or if you and the destination use Pegasus mail, or some other mail clients.

Sending a tagged mail to me won't work, either at my work address (i read as text only in Outlook) or home (using Turnpike).

Tagging can also be blocked using a firewall - should you not want your privacy invaded!

At only $79.95 it is a bargain, er, isn't it???

mb

Soulgirl

It's not 79.95! I paid 10 dollars and even now it's only showing as $19.95. It's for home use so stop trying to make this into a flippin arrogant ''I'm an IT expert'' degredation ****e thing.

kelvin

If you're happy with it, that's the main thing but don't have a fit just because others choose to find problems with it

Perhaps you're just irritated that you've paid for something that isn't as foolproof as you thought?