I think there's an Outlook 2007 read receipt bug with IMAP accounts (at least on my Win Vista workstation), where it will automatically send back read receipt notifications even if I set Outlook's Tracking Options to never send them, or to prompt me first. I'm not sure exactly what actions trigger it.
I think what's been happening with me most often is something like this:
- Outlook syncs to an IMAP folder and store a local copy of the messages
- I use webmail to move/delete the folder, or move/delete messages in the folder
- Outlook resyncs the account and purges its copy of msgs in the original location that are no longer there
- For any of these purged message copies that request an MDN or read receipt (per the
RFC 3798 Disposition-Notification-To header), Outlook automatically sends a notification. Unsurprisingly rather than a standard MDN format, Outlook's notifications use a proprietary winmail.dat TNEF attachment.
Most of them are
"Not read" notifications stating
"message blah blah was deleted without being read on date/time" -- sent from the account's primary email address defined in Outlook
Strangely a few are
"Read" notifications stating
"message blah blah was read on date/time" -- but I think the date/time given was actually when Outlook purged the message...
The other day I was backing up IMAP folders not just for me but for my family members as well. Some folders had been reorganized and moved around on the server since the last Outlook sync. Outlook started a resynchronization of the IMAP folders, and before I could stop it Outlook sent 46
read/not read notifications in response to purging its copy of messages from folder locations that are no longer there. These include notifications for old messages and for messages to other family members.
To make matters worse, my family's IMAP folders were shared through my IMAP account for convenient access, so Outlook sent all notifications as coming from my account's primary email address even for messages sent to other family members!
I am so ****** off at Outlook right now
P.S. I don't know if Outlook may also have a bug with sending delivery receipts (in addition to read receipts) without permission in response to the Return-Receipt-To header in a message...