# Gmail record of receipt **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 19, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492 "2012-11-19T11:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/1 "2012-11-19T11:29:11Z")
I use Gmail and want to know if there is some way to know that my recipient has opened my email to them. I cannot find anything about Gmail receipts. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/2 "2012-11-19T12:23:34Z")
In general, one can’t do this. An e-mail client is under no obligation to send any signal back to the originating e-mailer that it has received the message, and most don’t (and the only one I know of that does, calls up a dialog before it does saying, “do you want to send a read-receipt?” to which you can answer “no”). In practice, some marketing firms put (sometimes one-pixel, background-colour) images in their emails with a unique URL on a server controlled by them. They can later check their server logs to see if that URL has been accessed. This only works if the e-mail client downloads images automatically, though. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/3 "2012-11-19T14:44:56Z")
Read receipts for gmail appear to only be available for Google Apps users, which doesn’t seem to be available for personal use (at least, for free). ---
**Author:** ![SpaceDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spacedog/32/9932_2.png) [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/4 "2012-11-21T07:45:13Z")
I remembered seeing something like this on LifeHacker – there is an extension that does it (limited messages for free) [http://lifehacker.com/5927780/rightinbox-adds-reminders-to-gmail-and-notifies-you-when-email-you-sent-is-read](http://lifehacker.com/5927780/rightinbox-adds-reminders-to-gmail-and-notifies-you-when-email-you-sent-is-read) It explains a bit on the [support page](http://www.rightinbox.com/support) and it is relying on the embedded pictures as **leahcim** describes. I guess it’s embedded information in the links too – I’d worry that this might trigger the receivers spam/phishing warning. It also relies on the user to download pictures, if the receiver’s client isn’t set to download pictures automatically (the default in most places now) then they’ll get a message asking them if they want to. In a nice picture-centric newsletter it’s OK, but in a plain text message this is always going to look weird. For those reasons I wouldn’t really do this, why do you need read receipts? Could you just add a line asking people to confirm they received the e-mail (or a link they could click to confirm it). ---
**Author:** ![robcaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@robcaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robcaro)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/5 "2012-11-21T16:36:22Z")
Thanks all. Guess I will just have to hope that they received my email. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/6 "2012-11-21T16:42:00Z")
“Please let me know once you’ve received this message. Thanks!” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/7 "2012-11-21T16:44:15Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > “Please let me know once you’ve received this message. Thanks!” “Why so needy? You’re welcome, though.”😉 ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/8 "2012-11-21T17:07:54Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > In general, one can’t do this. An e-mail client is under no obligation to send any signal back to the originating e-mailer that it has received the message, and most don’t (and the only one I know of that does, calls up a dialog before it does saying, “do you want to send a read-receipt?” to which you can answer “no”). > > In practice, some marketing firms put (sometimes one-pixel, background-colour) images in their emails with a unique URL on a server controlled by them. They can later check their server logs to see if that URL has been accessed. This only works if the e-mail client downloads images automatically, though. [Web bugs.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_bug) And, as you mention, easily defeated by turning off automatic loading of remote images in email. Which, I believe, is the default setting for most e-mail client programs and webmail systems. And any sensible user will look for and make sure that automatic remote image loading is turned off. Too many exploits back in the day (and probably still in the future) based on buffer-overrunning or other malformed automatic loaded “images”, and if there are worthwhile images in an email, they’re just a click away. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gmail-record-of-receipt/641492/9 "2012-11-21T17:15:42Z")
> [@robcaro](#): > > I use Gmail and want to know if there is some way to know that my recipient has opened my email to them. I cannot find anything about Gmail receipts. General Petraeus, is that you?