Read receipts in Outlook: how they work and what they miss

Outlook can tell you when someone opens your email, but only if three things line up: your account supports read receipts, your version of Outlook lets you request one, and the recipient agrees to send it back. Each version keeps the option in a different place, and some accounts cannot use it at all.

What does a read receipt in Outlook tell you?

Outlook offers two kinds of receipts. According to Microsoft, a delivery receipt confirms that your message reached the recipient's mailbox, but not that anyone saw it. A read receipt confirms that the message was opened.

The read receipt comes with conditions you do not control. The recipient can decline, and nothing forces them to send one. Their email program may not support receipts at all. A missing receipt therefore does not mean the email was ignored.

Which Outlook versions and accounts support read receipts?

The account matters more than the version. If you added a Gmail or other IMAP account to Outlook, you will not get read receipts from that account, whichever Outlook you use.

How to request a read receipt in Outlook

New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web

1. Start a new message.

2. Go to the Options tab on the ribbon.

3. Under Tracking, select Request a Read Receipt, and Request a Delivery Receipt if you want that too. If you do not see them, select More Options at the right end of the ribbon.

Classic Outlook

For one message, open the Options tab while writing and select Request a Read Receipt in the Tracking group. If you reply in the Reading pane, go to Message > Tags > Message options and pick the receipt under Voting and Tracking options.

For every message, go to File > Options > Mail and, under Tracking, select the read receipt box. Microsoft itself suggests requesting receipts only for important messages. People who get the request rarely are more likely to answer it.

Outlook for Mac

Per Microsoft's Mac guide, select Receipts > Read Receipt while composing. If the Receipts button is missing, add it by customizing the toolbar. In legacy Outlook for Mac, the option is under Options > Request Receipts. Both need a Microsoft 365 work or school account or an Exchange account managed by your organization.

How to see who sent a read receipt

Receipts arrive in your inbox as messages. In classic Outlook you can also see them all in one place: open the sent message (usually in Sent Items), then on the Message tab, in the Show group, choose Tracking. The button appears only after the first receipt arrives, and it can take several minutes before it shows up.

Why didn't you get a read receipt?

• The recipient declined. Each recipient chooses in Outlook how to respond to read receipt requests.

• Their email program does not support receipts. Microsoft lists it among the reasons a receipt does not arrive.

• You sent from an IMAP or POP account. Gmail, Yahoo! and iCloud accounts added to Outlook cannot request receipts.

• You wrote from Outlook.com. You cannot request read receipts there, but with a Microsoft 365 subscription you can do it for the same account from Outlook for Windows.

• You are on a Mac with a personal account. Outlook for Mac offers receipts only for work, school and Exchange accounts.

What does a read receipt miss about a proposal?

A read receipt is about the email. When the email carries a proposal or a quote as an attachment, the receipt says nothing about the file: the client may open the message, read two lines and never open the PDF, or save the PDF and read it later without leaving any trace. Tracking pixels, the other common method, have the same blind spot and a few more, which we cover in how to tell if someone read your email.

To know whether the proposal was read, send it as a link instead of an attachment. The client opens it in the browser, and the visit is recorded on the proposal page, so it does not depend on a receipt or on images loading in the email. With PDF tracking you see who opened the file and when, and how long they spent on each page. The steps are in send a PDF as a tracked link.

Sellizer has a plugin for Outlook 2013 and later, in the desktop app and in the browser version. You send the proposal while writing a new message in Outlook, without logging into Sellizer (Outlook integration). You get an SMS the first time the client opens the proposal and an email on every open, and the statistics show the time spent on each page. If you allow downloads and the client saves the file, that copy is no longer tracked. We compare other ways to track email in Outlook in our roundup of email tracking software for Outlook. What happens to a proposal after you send it is covered on our proposal tracking software page.

If you receive read receipt requests

In new Outlook, Outlook on the web and Outlook.com you decide once how to answer them: go to Settings > Mail > Message handling and choose an option under Read receipts. Your choice applies to every request you receive. Your recipients have the same setting, so some of your requests never get a receipt.