While setting up the app (desktop) a few days ago, I had checked “Request a read receipt for all sent messages” without paying much attention. When I realised what it actually was doing, I went and disabled it.
The problem is that I keep on getting those receipts, not from new recipients, but from those few contacts I’d sent a mail to when it had been enabled. The classic work-around — re-enable, quit then disable again — hasn’t worked either.
Hi Tingo, the read receipt is a piece of code that is added to the sent message.
So you cannot remove it from the messages that have already been sent, the receipt is a part of that message and the recipient can decide to act on it (and you will then get the email about it if they send you the confirmation that they indeed read your message).
Turning read receipt requests off in settings will just ensure that your NEW messages will not include them. There is no way to change the messages you already sent.
So just keep them turned off if you don’t want to use this feature.
Thank you, Olivia. That’s precisely the way I had understood it.
Following your reply I sent a new mail to the same recipients, all of them people who don’t look at their mails regularly (thus the delay in acknowledging your reply.) So far, I haven’t got a receipt from them anymore; nor from anyone else, for that matter.
I can only guess that somewhere, somehow, there must have been a bug that only lasted a few days. Strange, anyway.