c# MailKit - Read receipt

Question

Does anybody know if MailKit supports a read receipt (reply message on read)? I have not found anything on the web or on Stackoverflow.

Answer 1

Read receipts (i.e. automated messages being sent when a user opens a message) is not something that MailKit can do automatically, it must be implemented by the software using MailKit or by the mail server.

This feature is something that generally only groupware suites like Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Novell Groupwise implement.

It is a feature that can be implemented by the mail server or by the mail client, but it is not a feature of any of the mail protocols and so MailKit does not implement it.

If you would like to support sending read receipts, you will need to automatically create a MimeMessage with a MessageDispositionNotification body part and send it when the user opens/reads a message in your client program.

To request a read receipt for a MimeMessage, you will need to set the Disposition-Notification-To header field like this:

message.Headers[HeaderId.DispositionNotificationTo] = "[email protected]";

If the receiving user agent supports read receipts and it is configured to send them, then you will theoretically receive one when the user reads the message.

For more information about read receipts, see rfc3798.