How to know if sent email has been delivered and read ?

How can I check if sent email has been delivered and read by each recipient ?

To know if sent email has been delivered, you can request a delivery receipt. Also to check if sent email has been read by a recipient, you can request a read receipt.

Both delivery receipt and read receipt have to be requested before email is sent. To request them, depending on your email provider or email client, you have to usually tick a checkbox in email options. After email is delivered or read, you should a get a confirmation email.

Please note that requesting of read receipt is not absolutely reliable, because a recipient may have an option to choose to not send you a read receipt when email is opened and read. So email can be read, but read receipt will be not sent.

It is also common that when email is not delivered, for example because of incorrect or not existing email address, the server should send you "failed delivery" notification after a couple of seconds or minutes.

Not all email services offer to request a read receipt when sending an email. On the other side not all mail services support to send a read receipt when email is read.

If you are using a Microsoft Outlook, you can request a delivery receipt or read receipt when creating an email, in Options, ticking the checkboxes Request a delivery receipt or Request a read receipt.





If you are using Outlook on the web (OWA), you can request delivery receipt or read receipt when creating an email, by clicking on the three dots on the top panel, going to Show message options and ticking the checkboxes. Options request a delivery receipt or request a read receipt may not be available, if you have a free @outlook or @hotmail account (if you don't have Exchange account or Office 365 account).

In Gmail, you can request read receipt when composing a message, by clicking on arrow in the bottom right corner to show more options. Then you should choose Request read receipt. This feature is available only if using Gmail for work or school set up by an administrator. If you have a free @gmail.com account, read receipts won’t work.