On a Windows machine, choose the Options tab as you compose email and you'll see check boxes to request delivery and read receipts. The recipient can choose not to provide a read receipt if their computer, tablet or phone prompts them to send an automatic message, but the following advice works more often than not. Thankfully, some tools can confirm whether someone has read your message. In other instances, the recipient reads the message but does not reply and may claim never to have seen it! Annoying, right? Or perhaps the message ended up in your friend’s or colleague’s junk or spam folder.

You’re certain you tapped or clicked Send, but somehow it got lost in the ether of cyberspace. However, sometimes an email, instant message or text fails to go through. You may see a little number on the Email or Messages icon to tell you how many unread messages are waiting for you. The messages sit there in an inbox or in bold text on your phone until they are fetched. A big difference between turn-based communication - emails, texts and apps like Facebook Messenger - and real-time communication via the phone or video chat is that you can reply to a message when you’re ready.

Apple outlook read receipt