Know for sure the email you sent was received

By IsaacKendall on 1 Sep 2011 03:28 pm

How to get a confirmation that your email was received by the BlackBerry user

Words can't describe the love we BlackBerry have for our BBM. It's not totally about the delivery/read confirmations but that is certainly one of the top reasons. Did my message get delivered? Simply check for the 'D' and 'R' and you know for sure.

Email is always near the top of the list of must have features for a BlackBerry user, so shouldn't delivery confirmations be built into the BlackBerry natively? The good new is it is a feature that is built into each BlackBerry!

This is one of those features that some know exists but more don't than do. We all know at least one person who claims email amnesia when they clearly dropped the ball and plain forgot to followup on an email you sent them. "Geez, I don't think that email ever got to me." LIAR...you think to yourself with your inside voice. You can tag an email so if it is received by a BlackBerry smartphone you will get an automatic response back that the handheld has actually received the email message.

This is not a feature the recipient can control or turn off. Additionally, you can trigger this tag from your BlackBerry or any other email platform, be it a desktop pc or another smartphone. As long as the email address you are sending to has a BlackBerry receiving the message you will receive an automated delivery confirmation.

To tag the email all you need to do is include: <confirm> in the subject of the email, that's all - simple as that. Here's an example, I'm going to send a message to the CrackBerry.com podcast star Joseph Holder, the subject of the email will be "hey there how goes it?"

So I send a subject: <confirm> hey there how goes it?

Sent Message

So now once Joseph's BlackBerry receives the message it will automatically push back a confirmation message back to me.

Message List

Confirmation Message

So there you have it! Now you will know that people are in fact ignoring you and the world is against you OR they may just be in a meeting.

Topics: Email Delivery Confirmation Help, How-To & Tips BlackBerry 101

IsaacKendall 76 (articles) 24 (forum posts)

31 comments

Joseph Holder Sep 1, 2011 at 1:12 am

Hey cool, this is like sending a certified email. When you absolutely have to know that someone got your message, it's nice to know that BlackBerry can handle this.

P.S. First! (*insert mad scientist laugh here*)

DJ Reyes Sep 1, 2011 at 8:51 am

Awesome stuff.

av8ryxx Sep 1, 2011 at 3:32 pm

Do the "Confirm Delivery/Confirm Read" options in the Email Preferences settings not behave the same way?

NordicNinja Sep 1, 2011 at 3:54 pm

The 'Confirm Read' feature requires the recipient to acknowledge receipt. They can opt to not send a read receipt if they choose. This is different because the delivery confirmation is automatic.

'Confirm Delivery' feature does not always mean that the message made it to the recipient, but rather it means that the message reached the destination server or some email server along the way. Any number of things can happen before it reaches the actual intended recipient, ie one of the servers can block the message due to blacklisting, address filtering, spam filtering etc.

HofstraJet Sep 1, 2011 at 3:34 pm

The only problem with this is that the recipient will see the tag in the subject line. Looks very awkward.

NordicNinja Sep 1, 2011 at 3:51 pm

This is true... I would have assumed that the tag would be invisible like an html tag, but this is not the case. I have tested it and the text does appear in the received message.

skynny70 Sep 1, 2011 at 3:36 pm

Nice feature. Too bad I know about three people who still use a BlackBerry rendering this just about useless to me if I understand it correctly.

I stand strong though. I love my 9930.

av8ryxx Sep 1, 2011 at 3:38 pm

Also, is this only good for messages sent to other Blackberry devices?

ridesno159 Sep 1, 2011 at 4:05 pm

Did you actually read the article or just skim over it? Your question was answered twice...

"You can tag an email so if it is received by a BlackBerry smartphone you will get an automatic response back that the handheld has actually received the email message."

"As long as the email address you are sending to has a BlackBerry receiving the message you will receive an automated delivery confirmation."

walcolm Sep 1, 2011 at 3:46 pm

i usually see a delivery confirmation mail in my inbox when i log on to the acct from a pc? how different is that confirmation from this?

tediprude Sep 1, 2011 at 4:02 pm

This is a really cool thing! And no - I didn't know about it untill just now. It reminds me of the AOL "snatch back" feature included with AOL mail. As long as the mail is sent to another AOL mail user - you can just snatch it back.

Still a cool feature though!
Peace...

TechieAttorney Sep 1, 2011 at 4:12 pm

IT CAN BE TURNED OFF ON OS6

Got o MAIL, MENU, OPTIONS, E-MAIL PREFERENCES, and change the last setting on the page, titiled Send Delivery Reciepts, to No.

TurboProp Sep 1, 2011 at 4:32 pm

This one allows you turn off your delivery receipts, not somebody else's

TechieAttorney Sep 2, 2011 at 10:16 am

Right. The blog article states "This is not a feature the recipient can control or turn off." They can turn it off my following the instruction I posted just above. In short, the blog post is wrong on that minor point.

TurboProp Sep 1, 2011 at 5:42 pm

Great feature! Seems to be working with both BESX accounts as well as BIS accounts connected to your Berry. Note that "<>" part won't get removed from subject and will be seen by your recipients

HavPlenty Sep 1, 2011 at 4:59 pm

What if the confirm tag is used when sending to a non BB device? Nothing I suppose? Just curious...

JM19 Sep 1, 2011 at 5:18 pm

great to know

bobbyrivers Sep 1, 2011 at 6:05 pm

Thanks for the tip, always learning new tricks for my bb.

cgiglia Sep 1, 2011 at 6:47 pm

I often need to check if a user's BB is fixed (or was never broken), so I use delivery confirmations with another tag to get the information I want without the recipient knowing (sort of). The following tag in the subject produces a delivery confirmation then deletes the message from the device and email account if configured to do so.

<$confirm,removeondelivery> Testing. Please ignore.

Note: the dollar sign ($) is required when stacking tags. Also, if the recipient is sitting in their in-box, they will likely see the message before it disappears.

virus786 Sep 1, 2011 at 7:05 pm

legendary!!! thanks for this tip ^_^

socalbbguy Sep 1, 2011 at 7:11 pm

Awesome tip, thank you!

npunk42 Sep 1, 2011 at 7:36 pm

All my contacts are LIARS! haha!

AnotherBillJ Sep 1, 2011 at 7:45 pm

Thanks for this tip. I'm so impressed with your site.

gundamunda Sep 1, 2011 at 11:25 pm

Is there a way to hide the "confirmed" portion?

HofstraJet Sep 2, 2011 at 9:11 am

I don't believe so, and that is the biggest problem with this "feature." The recipient will always see the tag in the subject line.

Denny_Crane Sep 1, 2011 at 11:57 pm

The recipient should have the choice as to whether or not to send delivery confirmations. BBM is fine as we all know that's how it works, but email is a different story. I think it's a breach of privacy...not a huge deal, but I am definitely not in support of this.

uzo123 Sep 2, 2011 at 12:12 am

I have been trying to figure out why I can't get confirmation on my email, now I have it ! Thanks.

ylefrancois Sep 2, 2011 at 11:58 am

Absolutely fabulous.

seawamcg Sep 3, 2011 at 10:51 am

You can avoid giving a confirmation by turning off all connections before opening the email. This is otherwise known as airplane mode. If you have an airplane mode app then use it before opening email if you don't want someone to know that you read an email. BB does not have an outbox. So the delivery confirmation is not sent when you turn your connections back on again. So airplane mode, read, delete on handheld, and claim ignorance! IGNORANCE IS BLISS!

Denny_Crane Sep 4, 2011 at 4:58 am

Doesn't work as the confirmation is sent as soon as the email is DELIVERED to the device, not READ/OPENED.

Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes Oct 7, 2011 at 2:28 pm

the <$confirm,removeondelivery> one doesnt work.....

works...

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