Sometimes you want a way to know that someone has read your email. Outlook provides this via a feature called “Read Receipts”. You simply tell Outlook to request one for the email you are writing, and the person at the other end can choose to let you know. If you don’t get a receipt back, that doesn’t mean they didn’t read it of course, because many users refuse to send read receipts.

If you would like to request a read receipt for just the email you are working on now, this is how you do it;

Outlook 2007

• In the message, on the Options tab, in the Tracking group, select the Request a Delivery Receipt or the Request a Read Receipt check box.

Outlook 2003 and 2002

1. In the message, click Options.
2. Under Voting and tracking options, select the Request a delivery receipt for this message or the Request a read receipt for this message check box. Or select both check boxes.

If you would like every email you send to automatically request a read receipt;

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click E-mail Options, and then click Tracking Options.
3. Select the Read receipt or the Delivery receipt check box. Or select both check boxes.

Here’s a video from Microsoft on the topic;

Read Receipts Video