Forum Discussion
Email Usage Reports - Read and Receive
I understand on face value the difference between the read and received, however there are some major discrepancies in our reporting that don't make sense. Therefore I'm trying to find a description of what Microsoft count as read and received?
For instance, does read mean when it is first marked as read from unread? What if I mark a message as unread and read multiple times, is that counting that as read each of those times? If i receive an email and read it, but just delete it straight away (without the opportunity for Outlook to recognize it as read), does that not count as read?
Can anyone point me to where Microsoft defines these terms, other than the below less than helpful meaning?
Receive actions - The number of times an email received action was recorded for the user.
Read actions - The number of times an email read action was recorded for the user.
Hello AndrewYates82
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Hi AndrewYates82,
I tried to find official documentation about your question but wasn't able to find it, ( sorry ). Let's see if someone else get it.
In the meantime, let me share with you some points:
. Outlook and OWA mark messages read when they are selected. So read status doesn’t always mean a human has looked at the message.
. The Receive status is basically the output of the Exchange Event. So, if a message was successfully delivered to the user mailbox.
. A message could also have a duplicate deliver event if, for example, it was sent to the user and to a group in which the user is also a member.
. The action that logs the read action in Exchange is "MessageBind", (An item is accessed in the reading pane or opened). Mailbox audit logging in Exchange Server | Microsoft Learn
. A message can have more than one access item log, as for example, the same message could be accessed by the mailbox owner and by the delegate/s.
. Opening a message and actioning a message are two different things. Someone might open your message, but it doesn’t mean they’ve done what you want them to do, (for example replied, clicked a link, filled out a form, etc).
More info:
Transport logs in Exchange Server | Microsoft Learn
Mailbox audit logging in Exchange Server | Microsoft Learn
Message tracking | Microsoft Learn
Hope this helps.
I have checked and I have been unable to see a place where Microsoft has Defined the read and receive terms other than the documentation below
Microsoft 365 admin center email activity reports - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn
where the Read actions is defined as the number of times an email read action was recorded for the user while the Receive actions was the number of times an email received action was recorded for the user.
Meanwhile, "email read" is a count of how often a user has initiated the action of reading/opening an email. An email is counted as "read" when the user clicks on/ opens it. If you read a message twice, it will be counted as 2 read activities.
After all, a single message might be read on 3 devices, so you have 1 receive and 3 reads in this case. If the same message is opened another 4 times, you'll have 7 reads and 1 receive.
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