How to know when your emails are read if you use Gmail?

Confirmación de lectura Gmail

In emails you cannot know if a person has read the message you have sent, unlike social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook or Instagram. However, there is a way in which you can find out if the person you sent an email to has seen it .

With the read receipt in Gmail you will know if your message was ignored or not, but you will have to activate that option, since it is not activated by default. Do you want to learn how to use this tool?

What is Gmail read receipt?

Confirmación de lectura en Gmail

This tool is an option that integrates Google mail for professional or educational extensions. What does this mean? Well, if you have a business Gmail email or one that ends in “.edu” you have the possibility of activating the read receipt. That means this method won’t work for you if you have a regular Gmail account.

But in general terms, this option works precisely for what its name indicates: knowing if a person has received your mail, and most importantly; if you have read it.

How to activate the Gmail read receipt?

If you have a business or educational email, activating this tool is extremely simple. What you should do is:

  1. Enter the mail .
  2. Click on compose an email.
  3. Write your recipient, the subject and the content of the mail.
  4. Before sending it, click on the 3 vertical lines below.
  5. Select the “ Request read confirmation ” option.Activar confirmación de lectura en Gmail

Once that’s done, there are a few things to keep in mind. What you will do in this method is ask the recipient of your mail to confirm the read request . In that case he must have read receipts activated and send you that confirmation. Also, that person’s account must be educational or business as well.

If you try to send an email from a school or business account to a regular Gmail account, you won’t be able to receive a read receipt because the option isn’t available in the recipient’s account type.

Apart from all that, it is important to remember that this option can only be activated from a computer . If you try to send an email on your mobile from your business or school account, the read receipt option will not be available. In that case you will have to go to your computer to send the mail.

The Gmail Read Receipt: Is It Worth It?

Gmail en ordenador

To tell the truth, this tool is focused on the business or educational sector, which is why it is only available for emails with these characteristics. Although the tool seems a bit useless because it depends on whether the other person activates it or not, the grace of it is that many companies and educational centers force the users of their emails to activate the read confirmation.

It is then that the option makes sense, because you as a user cannot really force a person to send you or activate the confirmation that they have read your mail.

If you frequent emails that already have this option activated, it is totally worth it because you will be able to know if they read your messages or not. If, on the other hand, you usually send emails to addresses that do not have read receipts enabled, then this tool would not make much sense until they activated it.

How can you tell if your email has been read if you don’t have a school or business Gmail account?

Surely the previous method has not met your expectations, since it is an option for a limited group of people. However, there is another way in which you can know the status of the mail you have sent even if you have sent it from a regular Gmail account.

Mailtrack: the email tracker that everyone can use

Mailtrack

Mailtrack is a Google Chrome extension that you can only use on your computer (unless you purchase the paid version). What this service offers in the free version is being able to know if the emails you have sent have reached their recipients and if they have read them.

You can use this extension in business, educational or common emails, and it works in both Gmail and Outlook. In order to use it you must do the following:

  1. Go to the Google Chrome Store.
  2. Find the Mailtrack extension and install it.Mailtrack extensión de Google
  3. Connect your mail to Mailtrack.Conecta Mailtrack a Gmail
  4. Choose the free version of the service.Mailtrack gratis
  5. Send an email as you always have.
  6. Go to your sent mail box and see if the email is marked with a double check (this means that the mail has reached its destination).
  7. If there are both checks, but only one in green, it means that they have not yet read the mail .
  8. If they are both in green, it is because they have already read it.Correo visto con Mailtrack

The good and the bad of Mailtrack

It is important that you know that if you activate this extension and send emails, the senders of those emails will see a notice that says “Sender notified with Mailtrack”. That means that people will know that you can see when they see your mail or not, so you have to be very careful with this topic.

We recommend that in order to avoid misunderstandings or problems, you tell the people with whom you send emails in advance that you have Mailtrack activated.

In addition to that, you will also be able to know from your inbox who are the users that use this extension . This is because the emails that arrive in your email and have this activated will be marked with a green ball.

Aviso de Mailtrack

That will be a sign that the person who sent you the email uses Mailtrack. If you don’t want them to know that you have already read the email, you shouldn’t open it, because the read confirmation pops up as soon as the email is opened . If you don’t open it, the person who wrote the email will see the double check (pure WhatsApp style) in their sent tray, but with a single green tick until you open the email.

Gmail or Mailtrack confirmation: which method to stay with?

Gmail VS Mailtrack

Really Gmail confirmation has a long way to go to be fully effective . The issue that the sender of your email must have the option activated and that they must also manually send you the confirmation, makes the tool tedious.

On the other hand, Mailtrack, both in its free and paid versions, tells you if the person has seen your mail or not, even when the extension is not activated. In addition, you can use it whether or not you have a business or educational email . So unless Gmail confirmation improves (which doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case) your best bet is Mailtrack.

But the last word is yours. What do you think of these methods to know if they have read your emails? Which do you think will work better?