AquaMail Forum
English - Android => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tiny Clanger on April 10, 2015, 07:48:38 pm
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I believe read receipts are a gross violation of privacy, and never allow them to be sent.
Now that they've been added to AquaMail, I've looked through the settings and can't find a way to permanently disable them. Could someone please tell me where this setting lives? (If there isn't one, please could it be added?)
Thanks
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Are you asking about read receipts in your incoming messages?
Yeah, I hate them too. If you sent me mail and it didn't bounce, just wait for a reply (and I may not reply at all, depending...)
There is no setting, but Aqua does not send read receipts automatically. It shows a small panel which the user has to tap to confirm first.
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Sorry for the delay in replying to this!
The reason I asked about a setting is that I don't really want the confirmation panel appearing and getting in the way — ideally, I want to configure Aqua Mail to not show the panel as I'm never going to be sending read receipts.
That said, it'll probably only be an issue on my work account as my home mail server is configured to strip those headers out before any clients can even see the mail ;D
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Well, the panel scrolls together with message content, so it gets out of the way quickly...
And the next update, 1.5.9 (maybe not too long before I start posting -dev builds again) also scrolls the message header (from / to / subject) as well, giving more room to message content.
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Ah, getting out of the way quickly is fine :)
Thanks!
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Hi Kostya.
Any chance for adding a setting that disables that panel?
Despite the cancel/never/send confirmation after you press the panel, my sister ("not so good at computers" as she describes herself) pressed the panel and then confirmed with send, a receipt in a message we both preferred she didn't!
A setting to permanently hide the panel or make it non clickable or add a different non clickable flag/icon would be nice.
Thank you!
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Ouch.
I cringe every time someone proposes a new setting... I really do.
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;D ok Kostya!
I agree with OP though. Receipts are an invasion of privacy for most people, and since email is all about that, maybe it deserves an extra setting.
Greetings from Greece!
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Well, delivery reports are a privacy violation -- since they're automatic. Fortunately, AquaMail doesn't support it :)
With read receipts it's up to you to click or not -- but I do understand the OP's case.
I could, in theory, change the current setting for "send without prompting" (which someone wanted, true!) -- to a three-state including "don't even show them", but:
Every setting change also needs translation updates, and also breaks things for existing users who are already using the non-default value.
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But I do agree -- read receipts are annoying and selfish, it's like the sender shouting "me, me, me, I'm the most important person in the world, you have to respond".
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Kostya, I agree with what you wrote above.
As for selfishness, - I agree that it looks that way. But in many cases, it comes from people not thinking about the consequences. "If I can do this, why shouldn't I?" And unless specifically told, some people don't even expect it can be a nuisance for others. Large portion of those (half?) would stop if they knew.
I've observed people feeling embarrassed when they learned that issuing a "recall" in Outlook after they accidentally sent a message to a large distribution list sent yet another message to the entire list (for those who are outside of the "Exchange" ecosystem).
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Someone in my office just came to me asking me why I read his e-mail at 3 AM. Forgetting the reason :), I am wondering if AM or Nine sent him a read receipt. It was 3 AM so I may have opened both apps. I do NOT want to send them out. I don't see a global option in Nine and found this thread about AM. At 3 AM, it is possible I clicked a button to allow the read receipt to be sent but a global option to turn that off would be great.
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Re: wondering if AM or Nine sent him a read receipt
In AquaMail, the default is to NOT send read receipts automatically, but rather the prompt panel.
Can't speak for Nine.
This of course assumes it was a read receipt -- and not a delivery receipt which are sent by mail systems (your Exchange server) automatically.
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Thank you for your reply. I just tested this with a colleague and can confirm that AM sends out a read receipt without any prompting. My colleague sent me a test e-mail requesting a read receipt. I opened it in AM. There was no option to send or not send. And he received the following e-mail back:
Your message
To:
Subject: Test Read
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2016 6:24:39 PM (UTC) Monrovia, Reykjavik
was read on Thursday, May 19, 2016 6:24:35 PM (UTC) Monrovia, Reykjavik
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Re: can confirm that AM sends out a read receipt without any prompting
I just tested and it doesn't -- unless the user enables the setting to do so, which is off by default.
However...
My test was with an Internet mail type account, not Exchange.
Exchange *servers* send "read receipts" automatically as soon as a message is marked as read.
This is independent of a mail app, it's a "side effect", additional processing done by Exchange server, when it sees a mail app mark a message as read.
The wording in "read receipts" sent by AquaMail itself is different too:
Subject: Return Receipt - <original subject>
This is a Return Receipt for the mail that you sent to <your address>
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Please check if the following option is disabled:
> Menu (three dots button) > Settings > Message view > scroll to the end of the first section "General": disable "Send read receipts"
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...unless the user enables the setting to do so, which is off by default."
I just checked the setting and it is turned off. I am using Office365/Exchange.
Thx.
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Re: I am using Office365/Exchange
Then please read what I wrote above about Exchange.
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This is extremely interesting and, as you know, I am comparing to Touchdown which I have used for years and Nine which I just bought before testing and selecting AM. With Touchdown, there was an option to Defer syncs to save battery power. The problem with that is that, when I read a message and then filed it quickly, it would file it as unread. When I went back to Outlook, I would have tons of unread filed messages. But I created a search folder to see those and quickly mark as read. It was annoying but it worked. If I left it in my inbox for a while longer, eventually the read status would transfer and I could file properly. And I don't think I ever sent a read receipt.
I e-mailed Nine yesterday and received this response:
"Nine synchronizes with Server using ActiveSync protocol.
If the received email is changed to mark as read, the server sends the read receipt email immediately. It can't be controlled by client.
If the status of mark as read/unread does not sync to server, the read receipts email won't be sent.
You can set the options with the following steps.
- Settings >> General >> Advanced >> Mark as read / Synchronize with server <= Disable"
I guess deferring updates doesn't really work when I am pulling mail every 10 minutes. Are there any other options to avoid sending a read receipt?
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Not that I know of.
There is even this:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20750032/responding-to-a-read-receipt-request-using-ews
Someone asks "how to send a read receipt using EWS" and the answer is "just mark the message as read, the server will send the read receipt automatically".
And I guess it's same with ActiveSync (used by Nine... AquaMail uses EWS) -- this logic is really deep inside Exchange, that's how they want it to work, and EWS and ActiveSync protocols both very closely follow Exchange's internals.
Now, Office 365 web mail is somehow able to do it -- I mean there is a distinct "prompt", to send or not to send (the read receipt), but web mail(s) typically "sit on top of" the message database more or less directly, and thus may be able to do things not offered via APIs for third parties...
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I think you are correct and, truthfully, I can't even swear that Touchdown didn't handle this the same way - maybe it just never came up. But it is a bit shocking to realize that, no matter how much I set my Outlook clients (desktop and laptop) to stop sending receipts, all of these mobile apps can't stop them from going out.
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TouchDown:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/nitrodesk/w2qV-kRyWKA
The discussion is from 2012, but...
Once again.. Td is NOT sending read receipts. The server sends it when the device marks an email as read. There is no override for this other than not marking as read
So how does Outlook do this? Outlook will prompt to allow a read receipt to be sent, and if you answer 'No' no read receipt will be sent.
Outlook is not an activesync client. From our reading of activesync documentation, there is no way exposed for this.
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Microsoft's support forum:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/af8fbc5f-eae1-4e34-8f53-5035f6684fc6/exchange-active-sync-iphone-and-read-receipt?forum=smallbusinessserver
1. E-mail with request for send receipt is received on the Exchange server;
2. E-mail is synchronized with Windows Mobile based device using Exchange ActiveSync;
3. When e-mail is read on Windows Mobile based device the read status is synchronized back to the Exchange server;
4. The Exchange server creates and sends out the Read Receipt when receiving the Read status update from the device;
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So I guess this applies to all activesync and EWS clients. Well, it seems to have been a learning experience for all of us. Glad we could all figure it out together.