Aqua Taskforce

ebaur wrote on November 9, 2008, 9:05pm

Mail.app uses SMTP for sending mail and IMAP/POP for checking mail. To my knowledge, none of these protocols directly supports the concept of read notification. This is something that has to be implemented server-side (like Exchange, for example, which uses different protocols under the hood for it's mail clients).

This is not something that be added foe a generic mail client. (If support was added for that, it would be tied to a specific workgroup server implementation.)

abitgone wrote on November 9, 2008, 10:14pm

It's all down to whether the MTA (mail transfer agent) supports notifications. If any MTA along the path of email delivery doesn't support read notifications, there's no way to force an application to "make it happen".

As ebaur says above, there is nothing in the RFCs/specifications for the protocols that would support this.

mojo2012 wrote on November 10, 2008, 7:31pm

Hmm, every mail client I have ever used, support that feature. It always worked ...
This has nothing to do with server agents ...
If a mail has the notification flag, the client reads that and send a response. Often it ask the user, if he want's that or not.
The protocol is irrelevant. The notification flag is part of the content of the mail. The client interprets that.
Ever read rfc-3798? Read it carefully: The MTA doesn't have to support MDNs (though nice to have). The MUA parses the mail.

ebaur wrote on November 10, 2008, 8:01pm

Interesting... I stand corrected. For the record (ie: anyone else reading this), the RFC mentioned is relatively new (this was 2004, extending MIME, which was introduced in the early 90s... which was a tack on to SMTP, which was defined in the early 80s).

As such, myself and the other poster were referring to the way that this was done in the past by Exchange, Lotus Notes, etc via X.400 / X.500, which is similar to SMTP but supports way more.

The new RFC proposes that MIME be augmented to support message disposition similar to X.400, et. al. Sounds good to me. It's funny that mojo2012 is saying that all GUI mail apps he's used supports this... I've not seen it, but I have to admit it's the first thing I turn off in Outlook anyway, I can't stand it. That being said, as it is now includable in MIME, Mail.app can transparently support it, and should. (Even if I'm just going to turn it off!)

mojo2012 wrote on November 10, 2008, 8:38pm

Since I'm working/studying I often need this feature. A few years ago I didn't care as well. So maybe a few years ago this wasn't there ...
And yes, it can be very annoying, but has some advantages as well.

ebaur wrote on November 10, 2008, 8:45pm

Well, it's somewhat irrelevant to Mail.app adding support, but I'll throw out my personal bias and say that the major disadvantage of this is that it tricks users into thinking that it means something.

Case in point, when I turned if off in outlook as I have at previous jobs, it means that no one ever got a read notification when they sent me e-mail. It means that they can't make any assumptions on if I've read something or not. If the other user is not aware that I can do that, then they may mistakenly assume I never read it, which is incorrect. (If anybody is wondering, I had good reasons at the time for turning it off, at least I thought they were good... I don't bother anymore since I don't care that much, but it was useful at the time.)

Again, not a reason for Apple to not support it, I just wanted to warn people away from being to used to it if they have it. (I actually changed my vote on this one.) Ironically, Mail.app is a good example of why you need to be careful, I guess. :-)