Not receiving requested Read Receipts

For some emails I manually set the option “Request a Read Receipt” and for some contacts I always request a Read Receipt via a message rule.

I’ve tested this myself and it worked as expected but I hardly receive a Read Receipt from other people. How can this be?

There are quite a couple of reasons for this to happen. Let me sum up a few for you and see if it applies to your situation.

• First of all; it’s a request. The receiver can have its reasons and choose not to send you a receipt.
• The receiver has the Receipts feature turned off.
  For Outlook this can be configured in:
  • Outlook 2007 and previous
    Tools-> Options-> E-mail Options…-> Tracking Options…
  • Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
    File-> Options-> Mail-> section: Tracking

  

  
  Requesting a Read Receipt for a message can be done on the Options tab.

  Note: Keep in mind that from a practical point of view, a Read Receipt is nothing more than an acknowledgement that the email you have sent to the receiver got marked as read. The receiver can do this without actually reading the message ;-)

  Last modified: September 27, 2016