BT e-mail

Hello all, can you tell if a BT e-mail has been read by the receiver, is there a setting that can be done. Where I worked this could be done on internal e-mails but this was set up by a colleague at the time.

Thanks Bob

When I used Outlook at work you could set up a delivered receipt or a read receipt or both on an email. Never tried it with anything else.

Martin C

It's a standard email feature, but how it's set up depends on the email client you are using (or webmail if you use that). Do you use your browser for email (in which case it's webmail) or something like Outlook or Thunderbird?

I use Thunderbird as an email client. Under "general settings" it's possible to enable return receipts. I've never done so and I understand that it's not 100% dependable.

A similar setting is probably available in other apps.

Thanks all, I just use the BT site only.

Bob

A quick Google seems to confirm that the feature is not available in the BT webmail system, yet another good reason not to use webmail. If you want to use it you can install Thunderbird for free, and it can access your BT email with a bit of fiddling around with password settings and other things.

The email opener tends to get an option box when they open the email

"send opening notification to email originator? yes/no"

Also most email programs gives the user the option of either "Auto Sending Read Receipt", "Prompt to send Read Receipt" (The receiver can refuse) or "Never to send Read Receipt"

I have Outlook set to "Never Send Read Receipt" So it would be a bit Hit and Miss if you get a response or not.

Most Companies disable the sending of Read Receipts as it tells spammers the account is active.

Dave

Only if your system is set-up to ask for it and the receiver's system is set-up to respond.

The feature is more likely to be activated on a corporate email system than a public one. For solid security and privacy reasons most public email users don't want senders to know their email has been read. Private systems often do want to know when emails have been read, but even with them the facility is used lightly because it generates showers of acknowledgements. Rather funny when someone sends an email to an entire organisation and then has his Inbox stuffed with 100,000 read acknowledgements. So the feature is OFF by default, and only switched ON when someone decides the overhead is worth it.

Not usually possible (as far I know) for users who read and write emails via a web-browser to control advanced email features. Full throttle email clients like Thunderbird or Outlook are more capable, but the real control is exercised by back-room email administrators. They typically apply their employer's policy, which means you probably can't just ring up and have it switched on.

Dave

In Outlook (and possibly other email client programs) I believe there is also an option to request a receipt when the sent email has reached the recipient's email server.

Ed.

Most modern companies get around it by using targeted HTML

If you open up a html part in your email it triggers their server end for a response

My email is set to text only