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Is there a program or something I can download, that would notify me when a recipient has opened or read an e-mail I sent to them? Maybe with the day they read it?
If your mail client is capable of adding the "Disposition-Notification-To" header, then you might get a read receipt. That's dependent on the header remaining intact (mail filtering tools are capable of stripping it before final delivery), and the client the recipient is using honoring it, AND them allowing it (usually the client pops up a "do you want to allow this" type of message).
There's a more insidious way, though, but it's still not guaranteed - nothing is, actually.
If you compose an HTML e-mail and include in the message an image that's loaded from a remote server, AND you have access to the server logs (or use some sort of tracking script to generate the image - they're out there too), then when the image loads, you'll have proof of it. This method, while actually pretty commonly used by e-mail marketers, isn't foolproof either, as more and more e-mail clients are blocking remote images by default.
So in a nutshell, no, there's no way to know for sure, unless you use one of the mechanisms above and you get a positive result (image loads or read receipt gets sent). Without the positive result, you'll never know for sure.
guessing you want to do this without the recipient knowing about it? Otherwise you can just call them up and ask - right? If so, it takes read receipts out of the picture as it requires participation from the recipient. So unless you can script something to do that (i.e. a Trojan) .. you're pretty much out of luck.
Off topic - why are read-receipts necessary? They annoy me so much that I make it a point to not send them back. Fockers, if its that important, call me up. Sorry - ranting here.
I actually wasn't wanting to do anything insidious , just get curious sometimes when my mom or a friend says "what do you mean? I never got an e-mail from you!" ....and yet nothing was 'bounced back' to me as undeliverable. Do they just go into "inner space"? like when you do the laundry and only one sock comes back he-he-he
I actually wasn't wanting to do anything insidious , just get curious sometimes when my mom or a friend says "what do you mean? I never got an e-mail from you!" ....and yet nothing was 'bounced back' to me as undeliverable. Do they just go into "inner space"? like when you do the laundry and only one sock comes back he-he-he
On the Interbutts we call that the bit bucket or /dev/null
...a friend says "what do you mean? I never got an e-mail from you!" ....and yet nothing was 'bounced back' to me as undeliverable. Do they just go into "inner space"?
If every link in the chain is behaving properly, this should never happen. The SMTP protocol was designed so that every message should be delivered or bounced - there's no other option.
That's assuming that every server is following the spec, though. It's possible that a message could disappear into the ether if there's an overly aggressive mail server admin or a mis-configured mail server out there. Also responsible for messages going unread is anti-spam technology that's either configured to discard messages it thinks are spam (a BAD thing) or misclassifies a message as spam, which could cause it to end up in a spam "folder" that people rarely look at.
If it's just friends and family you're talking about, it's probably just a case of your message ending up in the spam trap. Have them add you to their "white list" or "safe list" or whatever their mail provider calls it.
Is there a program or something I can download, that would notify me when a recipient has opened or read an e-mail I sent to them? Maybe with the day they read it?
I hardly ever type in an email address. I either copy paste from a website, or have it in my address book, where I can just click the box beside it and click "compose," and so forth. I was hinting that if you DO type it in, then mistakes are going to happen sometimes, even if you know the address backwards and forwards. And I'm talking from experience.
Woops. The machine was asking me if I wanted to quote anything so I thought the first one didn't send. Oh well.
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, just get curious sometimes when my mom or a friend says "what do you mean? I never got an e-mail from you!" ....and yet nothing was 'bounced back' to me as undeliverable. Do they just go into "inner space"? like when you do the laundry and only one sock comes back 
he-he-he
