Subject: Acknowledgement for read emails

From: Zeena Benjamin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 00:38:45 -0600 (CST)

Is it possible to know if the receiver has opened the mail sent by us?
Can something be done while sending the mail to know this?
Thanx

-- 
"Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to."

-----------------------
Zeena Benjamin
ECE Graduate Student
3652 Engineering Hall
UW-Madison
WI 53706
Ph No: (608) 265 3826

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From: daniel lance herrick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 08:21:35 -0500 (EST)

> Can something be done while sending the mail to know this?

One of the minor reasons I use pine is that it
ignores such requests and does not send such
notifications to the person who originated the
message.

That said, you can use the facilities pine has for
adding headers to an outgoing message to copy the
Return Receipt Requested header inserted into some
e-mail by the Mail User Agents that try to be "the
only software you need to automate your office"
(ccMail, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, ...).
Then your outgoing mail will request an automated
response, and the office automation program whose
header you copied will comply with your wishes
when someone who uses that e-mail MUA reads your
e-mail.

People who read your mail with pine will not
respond to those requests. In fact, if you copy
the Microsoft form of the request, probably people
who read your mail with Lotus Notes will not
respond to those requests. (And vice versa.)

(If you think this message was not really helpful,
well, my take on the issue is that I have written
a procmail filter to remove those headers from
e-mail going to an e-mail discussion list I run.
The notifications end up in my box, not the box
of the originator of the message. Except for the
ones that go to the list, itself.)

dan

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From: "Bill Kearney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 08:33:07 -0500

As Daniel points out a great many programs do not support 'return receipt'
messages.

In addition, some servers (like Exchange) have the ability to /block/ such
receipts regardless of what the client program wants to do.  So even if they
want to leave their client program set to return receipts the server may not
pass them.

If you want someone to respond then ask them.  If you don't have a relationship
that lends itself to open communication you have a bigger problem than a mail
client is going to solve.

-Bill Kearney

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From: Matt Ackeret <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 10:45:36 -0800 (PST)

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003, daniel lance herrick wrote:
>One of the minor reasons I use pine is that it ignores such requests and does
>not send such notifications to the person who originated the message.

I think a nicer response is that there's no uniformly followed policy for
return receipts for Internet email.

(That's allowing me a little bit of leeway because I think some of the
headers mentioned _are_ in one of the RFCs, but they weren't there from
day 1, and are thus not supported by many/most sites.)

This is actually one of the things I miss most from QuickMail, an otherwise
utterly horrid (I even thought so at the time) proprietary email system we
used to use at work long long ago.

--
top-posting: It's just a bad idea.

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From: Leslie Fairall <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 15:41:48 -0500 (EST)

Hi Zena and all:

There are two methods you can use to request a return receipt. The first
is to change a setting in your pine configuration. From the main menu, type
s for setup and c for configure. Type a control-w to search for the
customized-hdrs field. Hit c to change and type the following:

Return-Receipt-To: [email-masked] (or any other email address you
might use).

You can also only request a return receipt for certain individuals that
you want to make sure they receive your correspondence. When you are
composing a new message, type a control-r in the to: field. Go down to the
Return-R: field and type in your email address and press enter. This field
is already filled in if you use the customized-hdrs field in pine's
configuration settings.

Hope this helps.