Emily21 said:
I am using Microsoft Outlook 2003 Small Business for my e-mail account.
It's
set up so that I receive read receipts any time someone reads one of
my
e-mails. Occasionally, I will receive multiple read receipts for the
same
e-mail. Sometimes I will get them one right after the other and then
other
times, I'll get a second read receipt several days after receiving the
first
one. Does anyone know why this is happening. I've also had this
happen for
receipts I get saying my message has not been read.
The read receipts, *if* the user so chooses, are sent back by the
recipient's e-mail client. Well obviously that action won't occur until
the recipient actually loads their e-mail client and then only after
then read your e-mail. The sending of read receipts is NOT under the
control of the sender. The recipients decide if they will be sending
them or not. The sender can only ask. The sender cannot demand. It is
a read receipt REQUEST that you are sending (as a header that gets
included in your e-mail). Fact is, most users will configure their
e-mail client to prompt when an e-mail has the header that asks for a
read receipt, or they will configure to automatically ignore/discard
such requests.
You only get the read *receipts* if the recipient has chosen to send
them or configured their e-mail program to send them. You do not get
"has not been read" notices back. If the recipient says No when
prompted to send the receipt or configures their e-mail client to ignore
them, nothing gets sent back to you. If you are getting something back,
it is not from you sending an e-mail with a header that requests a read
receipt from the recipient. Perhaps you are instead requesting a
delivery receipt. That never gets to the recipient. The receiving mail
server (for the recipient) sends back the delivery receipt. However,
most mail servers ignore that request. They already will send back an
NDR (non-delivery report) if your e-mail cannot be delivered on that
domain. The negative feedback is sufficient to know when your e-mail
gets rejected and also when it has been accepted (by the lack of getting
an NDR).
The reason you get multiple reciepts at a time is because your one copy
of your e-mail goes to each recipient and it has the header in it that
asks for the read receipt. So sending to multiple recipients means you
may get multiple receipts. Some users leave their e-mail program
running all the time, and if they configure it to automatically send the
receipt then a bunch of them will send it back within a short span. If
you are receiving multiple receipts from the same recipient then that
recipient's e-mail program is screwed up (i.e., the e-mail to send the
receipt might be stuck in their mailbox and getting sent out multiple
times).
