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Outlook for Mac: Read Receipts

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› Outlook › Mac › Outlook for Mac: Read Receipts

Last reviewed on June 8, 2021     7 Comments

Applies to: Outlook 2016 (Mac)

The latest builds available to Office 2016 for Mac subscribers (version 15.35 (170610) and later) include a frequently requested feature: Read & Delivery Receipts. However, it is only supported in Exchange accounts. This includes Office 365, Outlook.com, and on-prem Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 and later.

Read and Delivery receipts are not available with POP3 or IMAP accounts.

The option to request read and/or delivery receipts is on the compose mail Options ribbon and Draft menu.

read receipts on options menu

read receipts on draft menu

If you are not familiar with receipts (because Outlook for Mac did not support it), receipts are notification that the message was received or read.

  • Delivery receipt: send a notification mail when the email has been delivered to the mailbox.
  • Read receipt: send a notification mail when email has been opened by the recipient

Not all email clients can return read receipts and recipients usually have the option to not return one. Neither receipt option will guarantee you that the message was placed in the Inbox or read. The read receipt only tells you that the recipient marked the message read. If the recipient reads it using a client that does not support receipts or has an option to not return receipts, you won't get one back. A 'deleted unread' receipt tells you that the recipient deleted a copy of the message without marking it Read, it does not guarantee they didn't read it without marking it read.

Delivery receipts, if supported, will tell you the message made it to the recipient's mailbox.
delivery receipts supported

If the server doesn't support returning receipts, Office 365 generates a message that the message was handed off to the server and Office 365 doesn't know what happened to it.
delivery receipts not supported

If the recipient uses an email client that supports responding to read receipts, you should receive notification when the message is read or deleted unread, provided it's not filtered out by antispam software.

More Information

Add read receipt feature to outlook for mac 2016 Uservoice suggestion

Outlook for Mac: Read Receipts was last modified: June 8th, 2021 by Diane Poremsky

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About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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Brad
June 13, 2017 3:43 pm

The latest update today to 15.35 indicates in the changelog that office 2016 outlook includes the feature for "read receipts." It doesn't. Nor does it include the "templates" feature. There is likely an error and retail licenses don't get these features (correct me if I'm wrong). It looks like only Office 365 licenses for Mac do.

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Diane Poremsky
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Reply to  Brad
June 13, 2017 3:51 pm

RR are definitely only available with Office 365 mailboxes due to how they handle the RRs,s o it would make sense if they limited it only to the subscriptions - but i thought it was in all versions, as long as you connect to office 365 mailbox (will double check). I will also check on the templates, they may have the same limitation that requires an Office 365 mailbox.

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Brad
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
June 14, 2017 12:30 pm

I connect to our university outlook servers through 365, but am using a Home and Business 2016 for Mac license on my MBPro. The features definitely aren't there. Now, if I used a university Office365 install, I might have them, but this is a personal laptop and I'd rather not be tied to the site licensing of work.

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Diane Poremsky
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Reply to  Brad
June 15, 2017 7:22 pm

That sucks. :(

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Michele
May 8, 2017 10:04 am

Such a false hope! I spent an hour on figuring out how to download the new receipt feature, only to discover that it's only available for the Business version. Shame it disn't say so from the start and that it's limited.

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  Michele
May 8, 2017 11:59 pm

it may eventually be supported in outlook.com but I don't expect to see it made available for non-exchange accounts.

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Brad
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
June 18, 2017 12:30 pm

It's definitely there if you use a 365mailbox or outlook.com through your web browser. Just not there in the "purchased" RR editions of Office 2016 since these are "new features."

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