How to Request a Read Notification in Outlook 2010

Microsoft Outlook 2010 provides the ability to be notified when someone has read an email that you sent and returns an email informing you that the recipient has read it. This can be very useful when the email is urgent, but you can even configure Outlook to request a read notification for every email if you so choose. This system is not absolutely reliable because the recipient always has the option to not send the read receipt.

Below is an animated graphic depicting an email and a read receipt that would be received from the recipient (this may take a minute to load depending on your internet speed):

There are 2 options to enable this functionality:

1. Per email – you can request a read notification only for specific emails, as needed
2. All emails – you can request that each any every email you send has a read notification request

Per email
The above animated image runs through the process of requesting read notification on a specific message (per-email basis). The steps are:

1. In the ribbon, click the Home tab and locate the New group
2. In the New group, click the New E-mail command
3. In the email, click the Options tab and locate the Tracking group
4. In the Tracking group, check the box for Request a Read Receipt

This will send the read receipt request for only this email.

All emails
You have the ability to request a read receipt on each and every outgoing email you send. To set this up, you do the following:

1. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab and select Options
2. In the Outlook Options dialogue box, click the Mail section
3. Locate the Tracking group
4. Check the box for Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message

Note: This setup screen also allows you to customize the options for when you receive a receipt request. The choices are to:

• always send back a read receipt
• never send a read receipt
• have Outlook ask you whether to send a read receipt for each request (default)