Disable sending read receipts?

[gadgetfreak]

...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.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: I am using Office365/Exchange

Then please read what I wrote above about Exchange.

[gadgetfreak]

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?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

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...

[gadgetfreak]

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.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

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.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

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;

[gadgetfreak]

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.