Another reason not to use the preview pane in Outlook.

A client contacted us to say he had sent an email to us with a read receipt request and he had received the response "Your message was deleted without being read". He was understandably unhappy about this!

I found out that if you use the preview pane in Outlook to read your messages, then delete them, the message isn't classed as having been opened by Outlook. This could lead to the "deleted without being read" message being sent (although it wasn't this in our case).

So, what can you do about it?

1. If you insist on using the preview pane then you can set the preferences so that anything opened in this pane for X number of seconds is classed as 'opened'.

Tools > Options > Other > Preview Pane >
Mark messages as read in Preview mode

The downside of this is that spammers including read receipt requests in their junkmail will find out yours is a live address. Cue more spam.

or

2. Make sure you click onto the next email before deleting the original email. Bit of a mess about.

or

3. Stop using the preview pane!