Request read receipt in Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Mail lets you request read receipt notifications for any message you send, to let you know if and when your email was read. It also lets you automatically, always request read confirmations from your recipients for every message you send. Finally, you can customize when to send read notifications requested by your senders: always, never, or "ask me each time" (the default).

Caveat: you should not fully rely on read receipts.

• Getting one doesn't guarantee that the intended recipient read your message (think of a shared email account, where multiple people open messages).

• Not receiving one can mean several things: the recipient's email program doesn't support that feature (not too likely), the person chose not to acknowledge your receipt request, or has configure their email client never to accept those. (Of course, it could also mean that the person hasn't yet opened your email!)

Manually request read receipts

Compose a new email by pressing Ctrl+Shift+M or clicking on the corresponding button. In the new window, make sure that the Message tab is selected, and click on the "Read receipt" checkbox.

The option is now enabled, and you can resume writing and sending.

You can also check that checkbox with the odd keyboard shortcut of Alt+M, F, R.

Did you know? Behind the scenes, Windows Live Mail adds a special instruction (Disposition-Notification-To) to the email headers, requesting that receipt from your recipient's email program. That's how simply read receipts work! 

Always request a read receipt

To automatically ask for read receipts whenever you send an email from Windows Live Mail, click on the Windows Live Mail menu (top left) and go to Options > Mail:

• Select the Receipts tab at the top.
• Check the "Request a read receipt for all sent messages" checkbox.
• Click OK to save.

You are done! From this point on, all emails you create from Windows Live Mail will have the "Read receipt" checkbox automatically checked - just uncheck it to disable the option for that particular message (it won't affect your global setting).

Response to read receipt requests you receive from senders

By default, Windows Live Mail shows a "The message sender has requested a response to indicate that you have read this message. Would you like to send a receipt?" dialog when you get a notification request from a sender, and only sends a confirmation if you click Yes:

But you can customize this behavior through the program's settings: click on the Windows Live Mail menu (button in top left corner), and choose Options > Mail:

• Select the Receipts tab at the top.
• You have three options under "Returning Read Receipts". • "Notify me for each read receipt request" is selected by default (the confirmation dialog in earlier screenshot). You get the choice to acknowledge or ignore each request.
  
  • "Never send a read receipt" will not show you any confirmation dialog, and automatically ignore any request. (Downside: you won't know when someone asked for one!)
  
  • "Always send a read receipt" will silently acknowledge all notification requests, and you won't know if one was asked or not. (Downside: you may not always like to confirm reception!)
  
  • The last setting has a sub-option, sensibly checked by default: do not send notifications when you were blind-carbon-copied, or the recipient of a mass mailer (like a newsletter).
• Click OK to apply your new settings.