If a sent e-mail remains unanswered, one inevitably asks oneself whether the electronic message has actually arrived at the addressee and has been read. It remains uncertain whether, for example, the cancellation of the newspaper subscription or the cancellation of the hotel booking was actually successful. And perhaps the offer made to a customer was not bad at all, but was simply never considered because it ended up in the spam folder.
To avoid such problems, you can set up a read receipt in e-mail clients like Outlook. This will prompt the recipient to acknowledge receipt of the message. If the recipient does this, you will receive a corresponding response, which will put an end to speculation about the status of the corresponding e-mail.
Hosted Exchange with IONOS
The prefect solution for your business! Get the world’s leading email and calendar solution together with secure hosting from a single source!
25 GB emailFree domain24/7 supportNotice that a read receipt in Outlook and other mail programs has no legal reason whatsoever. Therefore, in important cases such as termination or cancellation, always ask explicitly for a written receipt of your request.
This article explains how to use the read receipt in your Outlook client or in Outlook Web.
If you want to use read receipts in Microsoft Outlook to know when your messages have been read, you have two setting options. You can either make the read receipt the default, which automatically requests it for all e-mails sent, or you can send only selected messages with a read receipt.
The latter is particularly useful if you regularly send e-mails to certain people (friends, colleagues, business partners, etc.). In this case, asking repeatedly whether people have received an e-mail, if they have not yet responded, can be irritating for you and the other person. In the following instructions for the desktop versions Outlook 2016 and 2013 as well as the web app Outlook Web, you will therefore learn both how to set up read receipts for your entire message traffic and how to use receipts only in selected e-mails.
Outlook read receipts can be set up in just a few steps in Outlook 2016. You can find these settings under “Options” in the “File” tab.
In the next step, select the “Mail” menu item and scroll down to the “Tracking” group. Check the box “Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message” and confirm your selection with “OK.” Outlook 2016 now automatically requests a read receipt for all messages sent in the future.
If you only want to include the request for a read receipt in a specific e-mail, make the appropriate setting directly in the window of the respective message. To do this, switch to the “Options” tab and activate the “Request a Read Receipt” item in the “Tracking” section:
Regardless of which way you choose to set up the Outlook read receipt, you will receive feedback in the form of an e-mail when the recipient has confirmed that the message has been read. This should look something like this:
In contrast to the desktop versions of the e-mail client, Outlook Web does not offer the option of generally setting the read receipt for all messages. If you want to use the feature in the web app, you must activate it for each individual e-mail. To do this, first click on the three-point icon in the upper menu bar when writing the mail and select “Show message options...” from the pop-up menu:
In the message options, set the check mark for “Request a Read Receipt” with which the request for the Outlook read receipt is successfully configured.
Microsoft 365 with IONOS!
Experience powerful Exchange email and the latest versions of your favorite Office apps including Word, Excel and PowerPoint on any device!
Office OnlineOneDrive with 1TB24/7 support
Microsoft Exchange Server is considered the standard solution for business e-mail traffic and computer-supported collaborative work. The software has many different usage models of available and these require purchasing special licenses. We’ll show you the licensing model here and give you an overview of the different functions of the collaborative software.
Appointments are easier to schedule if you already know your colleague or business partner’s calendar. The groupware Microsoft Outlook offers the option to share calendar information with other people, or share the entire calendar to view. What information you choose to disclose is up to you. We just tell you how to do it.
Automatic out-of-office replies are a great way to let your contacts know when you’re not available. You can easily send automatic out-of-office replies from Outlook. Moreover, with Outlook you can set up numerous special rules, for example for cases when important e-mails need forwarding. We will show you how to use the Outlook out-of-office assistant, including the tool to set special rules.
A picture says more than a thousand words – this proverb also explains the immense popularity of emojis. Smileys, in particular, have long shaped digital communication and are a way for the sender to convey how they are feeling to the addressee. While they began their life in chat rooms and text messenger services, emojis have long since become a popular means of expression in Outlook and the...
You probably already knew that you can also work with your Outlook desktop application without an internet connection. But you still may not be familiar with the Outlook offline mode. Read our step-by-step guide – with pictures – and learn more, including how to start and stop offline mode.
Provide powerful and reliable service to your clients with a web hosting package from IONOS.
