How to Check if Someone Read Your Email

One of the most frustrating things about email is that it’s difficult to find out what happens after you press send. There’s no way to tell if the recipient received your message.

However, there are ways to find out if somebody has read your message beyond sending them a follow-up email. This article shows you how for five major email platforms.

How to Check if Someone Read Your Gmail Email

Google’s read receipts feature may be enough to help you to see if somebody has read your email. However, you can only use this feature if an account admin activates read receipts. If you are an account admin, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Google Workspace account.
   
2. Click Apps.
   
3. Click Google Workspace Core Services.
   
4. Select the Gmail icon and click User settings.
   
5. You should see the Email read receipts option. Choose between disallowing all, only allowing receipts for approved email addresses, or allowing receipt requests for any email address.
   

Assuming read receipts are active for your Gmail account, these steps allow you to request one:

1. Compose your email and click the More Options icon. This icon may appear as an arrow or as three dots, depending on your device.
   
2. Select Request read receipt.
   
3. Click Send.
   

Google’s read receipts system isn’t perfect. You may not receive a receipt in the following circumstances:

• Your company or school’s administrator restricts read receipts only to addresses on the organization’s allowlist.
• The recipient has an email platform that doesn’t use real-time synchronization. For example, the Post Office Protocol (POP) platform only syncs on demand.
• You’ve sent your message to an alias or a group mailing list.
• The recipient’s email platform uses Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and they haven’t set it to send receipts automatically.

Fortunately, some third-party platforms let you see if somebody has read your Gmail email. For instance, mailtrack.io offers a tracking extension for this purpose:

1. Download the “Email Track for Gmail – Mailtrack” extension from Google Chrome’s web store.
   
2. Upgrade to the Campaigns plan to track emails sent to a maximum of 200 people. You can also add Gmail receipts to your most important emails.
   

Once set up, the extension provides information about what happens to your Gmail emails after they’ve been sent.

How to Check if Someone Read Your Email in Outlook

Like Gmail, Outlook offers read receipts that you can use to see if somebody has read your message. To activate them for all of your emails, do the following:

1. Click File and select Options, then Mail.
   
2. Select Tracking.
   
3. You’ll see a box that says, Read receipt confirming the recipient views the message, check it.
   
4. Another box reads, Delivery receipt confirming the message was delivered to the recipient’s email served. You can check this box if you’d like to confirm that your email was delivered.
   
5. Apply the changes by clicking the OK button.
   

You can choose only to apply read receipts to individual messages:

1. Compose a new email message and navigate to the Options menu.
   
2. Select Tracking.
   
3. Check the Request a read receipt for this message box.
   
4. Send your email.
   

To track who has sent a read receipt:

1. Go to Sent Items and open the message for which you made the read-receipt request.
   
2. Select the Message tab.
   
3. Click Show and select Tracking to see if you’ve received a receipt.
   

Finally, you may be using the Office 2007 version of Outlook. If so, the processes for adding read receipts and tracking who sent them are the same. However, the process for adding read receipts to all emails is slightly different:

1. Click Tools and select Options.
2. Navigate to E-Mail and select E-Mail Options.
3. Click Message Handling and Tracking Options.
4. Check the Read receipt checkbox.

How to Check if Someone Read Your Email in Hotmail

As you’re using Outlook, you can also see who has sent a read receipt:

1. Head to Sent Items and open the relevant message.
2. Click the Message tab.
3. Select Show.
4. Click Tracking to see if you’ve received your receipt.

How to See if Someone Read Your Email in Outlook 365

Outlook 365 functions almost identically to Outlook 2021, which means the instructions for activating read receipts are the same.

To activate read receipts for all emails:

1. Click File and select the Options tab.
   
2. Select Mail.
   
3. Click Tracking and select the Read receipt confirming the recipient views the message checkbox.
   
4. Click the OK button.
   

If you want to apply read receipts to individual messages:

1. Write your email and select Options.
   
2. Click Tracking.
   
3. Click the Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message checkbox.
   
4. Send your email.
   

You can also check who’s sent a read receipt:

1. Go into the Sent Items folder and select the email with a read receipt attached.
   
2. Select the Message tab.
   
3. Click Show and then Tracking to see the status of the read receipt.
   

How to Check if Someone Read Your Email in Yahoo

Unfortunately, Yahoo! email accounts don’t have a read receipt feature. The Yahoo website only recommends sending a confirmation message to your recipient in the hope of getting a reply.

Thankfully, you can work around this issue by setting up your Yahoo! email account in the Outlook program in Windows. First, you need to set up your account:

1. Open Outlook and click on Tools then Accounts.
   
2. Select Email.
   
3. Click New.
   
4. Enter your Yahoo! email account’s username and password when prompted.
   
5. Enter “pop.mail.yahoo.com” as your Incoming Mail Server.
6. Enter “smtp.mail.yahoo.com” as your Outgoing Mail Server.

With Yahoo set up in Outlook Express, do the following to activate read receipts:

1. Log in to your Yahoo! email account via Outlook.
2. Compose your email and select Options from the toolbar.
3. Click Message Options.
4. Check the Request a read receipt box.
5. Click Close.

You can also generate read receipts for all of your messages, just as you can with a standard Outlook email address:

1. Log into your Yahoo! email account using Outlook Express.
2. Click Tools and select Options.
3. Click Receipts.
4. Check the Request a read receipt for all sent messages checkbox.
5. Click OK.

With this feature activated, you receive a read receipt when your recipient opens the correspondence you sent.

Have They Read Your Email?

Both Gmail and Outlook allow you to activate read receipts easily. Gmail is compatible with some third-party services that track email status, but Yahoo! isn’t. Thankfully, those using Outlook Express to access their Yahoo emails can work around that issue.

Being able to see who has read an email ensures you’re never left in the dark in terms of communication. Do you think you’ll find read receipts practical? Have you tried any of the tips we mentioned here? Let us know in the comments section below.