If a sent email remains un­answered, you will no doubt ask yourself whether it actually arrived and has been read. To do this, you can set up a read con­firm­a­tion in email clients such as Outlook. This prompts the recipient to ac­know­ledge receipt of the message.

How to set up Outlook read receipts quick guide

  1. First compose your email as usual.
  2. Click on Options.
  3. Tick the box next to Request a Read Receipt.
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Your options for setting up Outlook read receipts

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 emails sent, or you can send only selected messages with a read receipt.

Note

Please note that a read receipt in Outlook and other email programs carries no legal weight. For critical matters, such as ter­min­a­tions or can­cel­la­tions, always ensure you request a written con­firm­a­tion of your com­mu­nic­a­tion.

The latter is par­tic­u­larly useful if you regularly send emails to certain people (friends, col­leagues, business partners, etc.). In this case, asking re­peatedly whether people have received an email, if they have not yet responded, can be ir­rit­at­ing for everyone involved. In the following in­struc­tions for Outlook versions 2021, 2019 and 2016 as well as for Outlook 365, you will learn how to set up read receipts for your entire message traffic and how to use read receipts only in selected emails.

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How to set up Outlook read receipts

You can request read receipts for your entire email traffic in Outlook in just a few steps. The cor­res­pond­ing setting option can be found in the Outlook Options section, which can be opened via Options in the File tab:

Image: File tab in Microsoft Outlook
You can also open the options in Outlook by pressing the [Alt], [D] and [O] keys in suc­ces­sion.

In the next step, select Options then the Mail menu item and scroll down to the Tracking section. Tick the box Read receipt con­firm­ing the recipient viewed the message and confirm your selection with OK.

Image: Enable Outlook read receipts
Outlook advises you that not all email servers and clients support read receipts.

How to set up read receipts in Outlook for in­di­vidu­al messages

If you want to request a read receipt for a specific message, you should first compose the email.

Click on the Options tab and then on the three dots to display further options. Now select Request a Read Receipt, which suc­cess­fully sets up the Outlook read receipt request.

Image: Enable Outlook read receipt one time
After ac­tiv­at­ing the ‘Request a Read Receipt’ box by ticking it, the read receipt request is auto­mat­ic­ally added when the re­spect­ive email is sent.
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