Poco Reading Mail FAQ - Return receipts

Poco Reading Mail FAQ - Return receipts

Q: Does Poco handle return recipts?
 
A: While you can request a receipt be returned to a mail you send (by either pressing the "Optional" tab in the message composition window or selecting "View optional message options" from the "View" menu on the same window and checking the "Return receipt" box) it appears Poco doesn't send a receipt when reading mail. This could be accomplished via a script (although I'm not certain this method would meet the standards defined by the group responsible for defining the email standards). It might also be possible to accomplish this with a filter.

Script method

Such a script would be run on incomming mail and would examine the mail for a "Return-Receipt-To:" tag in the header. If it found such a tag it could then prompt the user for whether or not to send a receipt. If the user said to send a receipt then the script would create and send one.

The script could be generalized to screen the incoming message against addresses in your address books and take different options based on whether or not the address is present. For example the script could be configured to automatically return receipts to anyone in your address book but to prompt you for whether or not to send one to someone not in your address book. In a truely generalized script this would be a choice that was made by the user via the "Setup" functionality.

Filter method

To implement this via a filter you would have to create a template for the return receipt. I don't know if there's a standard format for this or not. The filter search criteria would be to search "%headers% for "Return-Receipt-To:" with the action being "reply with template", selecting your "return receipt" template.

Notes:

  1. This technique returns a receipt to the original sender, this might not be the same as the address specified in the "Return-Receipt-To:" header.
  2. There is an undocumented filter search option, %addressbooks%, that you can use here provided you only want to return receipts to people whose names are in one of your address books.