Yahoo doesn’t offer it. But AOL does but only when you send an email to another AOL member.

E-mail Read Receipt

When you send e-mails out, do you ever wonder if they actually get read or not? E-mail is great, but sometimes it leaves us in the dark. How are we supposed to know if a recipient really read the message we sent? Sometimes it’s just pertinent to know and that’s where e-mail read receipts come into play. Before I explain, I just want to let you know that this tip is only good for Outlook Express users.

There are two ways you can request a read receipt when using OE. The first one goes along with just an individual message. Click on Create Mail to get a new message started. Go ahead and type in the recipient’s address and whatever you want to say. When you’re done, go up to the Tools menu and choose Request Read Receipt. OE will then inform you when the message has been read by the recipient.

The second method you can use is to put a read receipt request on every single message you send out. To do this, open OE and go to Tools, Options. Once there, click on the Receipts tab and checkmark the box that says "Request a return receipt for all sent messages." Click OK and you’ll be all set. OE will notify you each time one of your e-mails has been opened and read. This is helpful for all those urgent messages and sometimes, it’s even fun to see how long it takes someone to respond to you!

~ Erin

P.S. – Unfortunately, this feature is not offered in the Web based e-mail programs (Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, AOL, etc).