How to activate “Seen” in Gmail, Google’s unknown feature

The giant Google contains one of the most used email services in the world: Gmail. According to data from Statista, it has more than 1.5 billion users.

Adding to a simple interface is its inclusion in the package Google Workspace, making it a very efficient tool for sending and receiving emails. Furthermore, it works well when it comes to identifying unwanted or spam emails.

Due to its popularity, most people know all its functions. One of these, so far limited to professional or educational accounts, allows this know if the recipient, in fact, has read the e-mail.

How to activate “Seen” in Gmail, Google’s unknown feature

Request or return to read the receiptAccording to Google itself, this is a feature “available only if you use Gmail for work or an education center configured by an administrator. If you use a gmail.com account, read receipts will not work.”

To know when to e-mail sent from Gmail, the sender can request a read the receipt. To do this, you need to follow the following steps: Open Gmail on your PC and compose the message. When you finish writing, go to More options at the bottom right and then to Request reading receipt. Send the message.

Read receipts will appear in your Gmail inbox. The company warns that “the person you sent it to may need to approve the read receipt before receiving the notification.”

For the message recipient, if they receive a message requesting a read receipt, they will need to do the following: open Gmail on their PC, read the email, then click Send confirmation, to do the same now, or not now , to do it later.

Google reports that “read receipts can be used in most email systems, but the recipient You will not receive them in different situations.

For example, if the message was sent to group distribution list or to an alias; if the administrator limits read receipts; if the recipient uses an email program that synchronizes in real time (POP protocol) or if the confirmation occurs using the IMAP protocol.

Even if the system seems infallible, Google warns that “receiving a read receipt does not always mean that the recipient has read the message. How confirmations work depends on the email system used by the recipient.

Outside of Gmail, there is an application called Mailtrack which allows you to check whether messages have been read or not. It can be added to the toolbar and there are three plans available, one of which is free. For more information: mailtrack.io/es