Mac Yosemite Tip: Setup Mac’s Mail Client to Request Read Receipts
Create two files that contain commands to turn on/off read receipts. I’ve verified this works with Yosemite’s Mail client for emails sent from an iCloud account to an Outlook account. (It seems that only Outlook Exchange services honor receipt request. Regular Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc. do not allow the user to send read receipts.)
Set these files up as follows:
Turning Read Receipts On:
Create a file with a name such as setReadReceipts_True with the following bash shell header and command:
#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Disposition-Notification-To" = "John Doe
You’ll want to edit the last part of the command by changing the generic placeholders John Doe and email@icloud.com with your personal name and email.
Likewise, another file, setReadReceipts_False, can hold the content to turn off read requests:
#!/bin/bash
defaults delete com.apple.mail UserHeaders
I placed these two files in a “bin” folder located in my home directory. Make sure they are executable files by using a terminal and typing the following:
chmod 744 setReadReceipts_*
Now, to turn read receipts on, in your terminal, type:
~/bin/setReadReceipts_True
Similarly, you can turn off read receipts by calling the other file.
cheers