Generate 'Read Receipts' in Mail.app

May 23, '05 10:15:00AM

Contributed by: jmcook

The only major feature that I missed when moving from Entourage v.X to Mail.app was the ability to request and return Read Receipts. I finally came across this article which explained how to add custom headers to Mail.app. In the case of adding a Read Receipt Request, all that's need is a Disposition-Notification-To header. In the Terminal, type this:


$ defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders
$ defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders \
'{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "user@domain"; }'
Note that using the second command will erase all your other custom headers (the first command shows any you have created). So it might be easier to use the Property List Editor if you want several custom headers, such as a FOAF link. The .plist is located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. With that done, it is just a matter of adding a rule to Mail.app to handle incoming Read Receipt requests. You'll need to use the "Edit Header List..." option to add Disposition-Notification-To to your list of choices. My final rule looks like this: This AppleScript will be called by the rule and generate a simple message that says the message was received.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

Comments (25)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050512155856402