Email, Messaging, & Video Calls Email Get Notifications When Your Messages Are Read in macOS Mail Enable this hidden feature using Terminal by Heinz Tschabitscher Writer A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. our editorial process Heinz Tschabitscher Updated on September 24, 2020 reviewed by Jessica Kormos Lifewire Tech Review Board Member Jessica Kormos is a writer and editor with 15 years' experience writing articles, copy, and UX content for Tecca.com, Rosenfeld Media, and many others. our review board Article reviewed on Nov 25, 2020 Jessica Kormos Email Yahoo! Mail Gmail Tweet Share Email By default, macOS Mail doesn't support read receipts—notifications that the recipient of your email has opened it; however, if you're comfortable working in Terminal, you can make the necessary modifications to start requesting read receipts from your email recipients. Typically, Mail will ask the recipient to confirm they opened the email, after which you'll get a message to that effect. While this feature doesn't guarantee that the person actually read the email, it does confirm that it hit their Inbox, and you can rule out delivery failure. igor kisselev, www.close-up.biz / Getty Images Here's how to enable this feature: Instructions in this article apply to devices running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and higher. Open Terminal from your Mac's Utilities folder. "Utilities" is inside the Applications folder. At the prompt, type: defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders and press Return. If that command returns an error that reads, "The domain/default pair of (com.apple.mail, UserHeaders) does not exist," type the following, replacing "Name" and "email address" with your own, and then press Return. For example: defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "Name <email address"; }' You're done at this point unless the defaults read command above returns a line of values that starts with { and ends in }. If so, take the following steps to finish setting up read receipt requests. Highlight the entire line. It might read something like {Bcc = "bcc@example.com"; }, for example. Copy that highlighted line with the Command+C shortcut, but don't paste it yet. Instead, type this (but don't press Return yet): defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders Put a space at the end of the line, and then single quote, and then paste what you just copied so that it shows up after what was just typed. End it with a single quote. Insert "Disposition-Notification-To" = "Name <email@address>"; ' in front of the closing } character, again replacing Name with your name and email@address with your email address. Press Enter. The line might now read like this: defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{Bcc = "bcc@example.com"; "Disposition-Notification-To" = "John Doe <sender@example.com>"; }' For full knowledge and control over the fate of the emails you send in macOS Mail, you can employ a certified email service or use third-party software such as iReceipt Mail. To Disable Automatic Read Receipt Requests Turning off this setting is just as easy. As above, open Terminal again. Simply type the following, then hit Enter. defaults delete com.apple.mail UserHeaders Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Email Address Sign up There was an error. Please try again. You're in! Thanks for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. Thank you for signing up. Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit