[PLUG-TALK] MUAs and "Mail Opened" Indicator

[Galen Seitz]

Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Paul Johnson wrote:
> 
>>>    1) Can outlook determine if the message has been opened when the
>>> recipient's MUA is pine, mutt, elm, Thunderchicken, Sylpheed, or something
>>> other than Outlook?
>> Yes, using IMAP.
>>
>>>    2) Is this capability of determining whether recipients have seen a sent
>>> message available in any other MUA?
>> I think it's universally enough supported in IMAP that you don't have
>> to sweat it.
> 
>    So, I need to read about IMAP to understand how it works.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Rich
> 

I think there's some confusion here.  I think Paul thought you were 
asking whether when a single recipient, using two different MUAs to 
read email, does one MUA know when the other has opened a given email.

Richard, I assume you were asking whether any common Linux MUA 
supports notifying the sender that an email has been opened.  In 
Thunderbird these are called 'Return Receipts', and I believe that 
they are disabled by default.  Here's a good explanation.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Figuring_out_whether_the_recipient_read_your_message

I suspect most Linux users consider return receipts a waste of 
bandwidth, if not an invasion of privacy.  I would expect most Linux 
MUAs to either not support them, or have them default to disabled.

galen