other than requesting a recipt , is there any other way i can check if my emails have been read or opened ??
running win 7 if that helps ?

cheers

hack their account?

no – would be a major privacy issue if your recipient's mail client were to go around sending any information about it's status to other parties wouldn't it?

Read receipt requests are all you have, and of course can be declined by the recipient too.

Stoner – Member
no – would be a major privacy issue if your recipient's mail client were to go around sending any information about it's status to other parties wouldn't it?

Read receipt requests are all you have, and of course can be declined by the recipient too.

thought id ask anyway ..
cheers

Reliably? No.

Read receipts are fairly hit and miss, as it's not a 'standard' and relies on the recipient end of the transaction honouring the request (and often, when it does work it prompts the user to opt out of sending the response anyway).

The only thing a receipt will tell you is that it's been opened if you get one. It doesn't tell you if it's been read (cos the other person could have opened it and closed it again without reading), and the absence of a receipt doesn't tell you that it hasn't (because there's a dozen other reasons why this might happen).

The only sure fire way of knowing if someone's read something is to ask them.

Or you can be sneaky and embed "web bugs" in an HTML email.

Basically you create a 1×1 blank image, give it a unique name, stick it on a server, and include it within the email. Then check the server logs and watch for the image request.

That's what a lot of spam emails do, but might be a bit involved for your needs 😀

Or you could just stalk the young lady the old fashioned way, by parking outside her house…

😆

>Or you can be sneaky and embed "web bugs" in an HTML email.

Most decent Email clients disable images by default though to stop such spam tactics. Of course the user may still elect to view images or perhaps they have a poor Email client 🙂

I thought that within Outlook there was a way of retrieving a message that hadn't been open and read by the intended recipient. Not quite what you were asking but could be of use if it's actually possible.

you can only do that on mail routed through the same exchange server johnny., i.e. within the same company mail system,

Le voila – works flawlessly.

http://www.didtheyreadit.com/

If it matters that much give them a call?

didtheyreadit is sort of clever in a bandwidth wasting way, they add a bit of code to your email that downloads a big file veeeerrrrrryyyyyy ssllloooooooowwwwwllllyyyyy and they count how much of it is downloaded as the email is open. your sysadmins may not like it.

they add a bit of code to your email that downloads a big file veeeerrrrrryyyyyy ssllloooooooowwwwwllllyyyyy

this wouldn't work on me as I always use a web based reader and block all inclusions. Also I don't understand why a big inclusion would make any difference – so long as it's unique it could be a single byte and be as effective.

At my work you can check if an email has been opened. Internal mail only though.

See what you think

sfb – the file is downloaded at 8 bits per second, the download rate is counted so that the server can calculate the time that the message has been viewed for.
http://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/new-email-spying-tool

Wouldnt work for me either as google apps mail blocks images unless authorised.

Wouldn't it also give a false positive if you use outlook preview pane?

sfb – the file is downloaded at 8 bits per second, the download rate is counted so that the server can calculate the time that the message has been viewed for.

in which case it doesn't need to be big 🙂

Wouldn't it also give a false positive if you use outlook preview pane?

yes if you're dumb enough to enable images in it 🙁

yes if you're dumb enough to enable images in it

what I meant was the sender may think that the recipient had read it – when in fact they had preview pane running with image downloads enabled

what I meant was the sender may think that the recipient had read it – when in fact they had preview pane running with image downloads enabled

yes, understood – but enabling images in preview is unwise 🙁