Samsung Email Read Receipts: Does Samsung Email Track You?

A Samsung Email read receipt is something you mostly receive, not send. Samsung's community moderators have said the app has no option to request one, and Samsung documents no switch for answering them either. That does not make the app tracking free. Whether a sender learns you opened their message depends on two things Samsung Email does not fully control: the mail server behind your account and the remote images inside the message. We read Samsung's privacy notice, its Google Play listing, Samsung Knox documentation, Microsoft's Exchange reference pages and Samsung's own community forums on October 11, 2026. We did not test the app on a phone, and we say so wherever that matters.

Key Takeaways

• Samsung's community moderator answered in December 2020 that the option to request a read receipt "is not available for Samsung email," and we found no later Samsung page that adds one.
• Microsoft's Exchange documentation says that, by default, "A read receipt is automatically returned when the user opens a message sent with a read receipt request" for Exchange ActiveSync clients, the protocol Samsung Email uses for work accounts.
• Samsung Email controls remote images with a per account "Show images" toggle, and Samsung documents no image proxy, so a tracking pixel loads whenever that toggle is on.
• The Samsung Email privacy notice, effective April 7, 2025, states that "Samsung does not collect personal data," and the Google Play listing declares no data collected and none shared.
• Gmail's image proxy is something Google describes for Gmail itself, so a Gmail account read inside Samsung Email depends on Samsung's image setting instead.

Can You Request a Read Receipt in Samsung Email?

No, Samsung Email has no documented option to request a read receipt. On December 31, 2020, a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra owner asked on the Samsung Members community why they could not request a receipt when sending email. Another member replied that "there is no Read Receipts on option in Samsung Email client" and suggested the Microsoft Outlook app. A Samsung moderator then confirmed it: "Unfortunately, the option is not available for Samsung email."

That answer is almost six years old. We checked what Samsung has published since. The current Samsung Email listing on Google Play, updated September 23, 2026, lists POP3 and IMAP support, Exchange ActiveSync, S/MIME encryption, notifications, spam management and combined mailboxes. Receipts are not on the list. Samsung's own Samsung Email how to guide, last updated June 9, 2026, walks through composing a message without mentioning one.

Be careful with search results here. Most Samsung forum threads about read receipts concern Samsung Messages, the texting app, where a moderator gives the path Settings, Chat settings, Send read receipt. That switch controls RCS chat receipts. It does nothing for email.

Under the hood, an email read receipt is a Disposition-Notification-To header. RFC 8098, the IETF standard from February 2017, calls it "merely a request for an MDN" and says recipients' mail programs "are always free to silently ignore such a request." For a deeper look at how the header behaves in Google's products, see our explainer on Gmail read receipts.

Does Samsung Email Send Read Receipts Automatically?

For Exchange and Microsoft 365 work accounts, the receipt is usually sent automatically, and the server does it rather than the app. Samsung's Knox white paper on Samsung Email says the app "can use MS Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) to synchronize with the Microsoft Exchange server." When you open a message, the app syncs its read state back to that server.

Microsoft's reference for Set-CASMailbox documents a parameter called ActiveSyncSuppressReadReceipt that "controls the behavior of read receipts for Exchange ActiveSync clients that access the mailbox." Its two values:

• $true: "Read receipts are not automatically returned when the user opens a message sent with a read receipt request."
• $false: "A read receipt is automatically returned when the user opens a message sent with a read receipt request. This value is the default."

Microsoft lists the parameter for Exchange Server 2016, 2019 and Subscription Edition, and for Exchange Online. Unless your administrator changed it, opening a receipt request in Samsung Email on a work account sends the receipt, with no prompt. Even the suppression setting had a gap. Microsoft's Exchange Server 2019 fix notice says receipts were "still automatically sent if the recipient of the original message replies to it or forwards the message," and that Cumulative Update 14 fixes it.

The Outlook on the web switch does not help here. In our Outlook read receipts review we covered -ReadReceiptResponse, the setting behind Never send a response. Microsoft's own page for that cmdlet says those settings "are not used in Outlook, Exchange ActiveSync, or other email clients." So a work user who picked Never send in a browser can still return receipts from a Galaxy phone. That is the part most guides miss: the receipt behavior travels with the protocol, not with your preferences.

IMAP and POP3 accounts are less clear. No server sends the receipt for you there, so the app would have to generate it. Samsung documents nothing either way. The only first hand report we found is an XDA Developers forum post from November 19, 2015, by a Galaxy S6 Edge owner who wrote that "the Samsung email client automatically sends 'read receipt' on any email that requests that." Nobody in the thread confirmed or disputed it, and the app has been rebuilt many times since, up to version 6.2.15.11 in September 2026. Treat it as unverified for current versions.

RFC 8098 sets the bar Samsung should meet. It says "it is strongly recommended that the user agent obtain the user's consent before sending an MDN" and that "The default value should be not to send MDNs." Samsung documents no consent prompt and no setting.

Does Samsung Email Load Tracking Pixels?

Yes, whenever the account's Show images toggle is on, because Samsung documents no image proxy or pixel filter. A tracking pixel is a remote image, usually one pixel wide, that the sender's server logs when your app fetches it. Samsung Email offers one control over that fetch. On August 1, 2022, a Samsung moderator on the Samsung Members forum gave the path: "Email (app) > ≡ (Menu) > Settings > Select email account > Show images > Toggle on."

The history matters. In late July 2022, owners in Australia and Germany reported that an app update removed the Show images button from individual messages. One wrote that emails now "show no images by default," and that the per message "show images" button was "no where to be found." On the German Samsung Community thread, users objected that switching on all images globally was "keine echte Lösung" (no real solution), and one wrote: "ich möchte wie früher bei jeder eMail selbst entscheiden, ob die Bilder heruntergeladen werden sollen" (I want to decide for each email, as before, whether the images get downloaded). A per account switch means trusting every sender equally.

What we could not pin down:

• The factory default today. Litmus, the email testing company, recorded "Images enabled by default?" as yes for Samsung's native client in December 2017. The 2022 forum reports describe the opposite after that update. Samsung publishes no current statement, and we did not test version 6.2.15.11.
• Whether the per message button is back. Some third party guides say a later 2022 update restored it. We found no Samsung source confirming that.
• An image proxy. We found none in any Samsung page, the Knox white paper or the privacy notice. Nothing Samsung describes stands between your phone and the sender's image server, and we did not capture the app's traffic to check.

Samsung Email is not a niche app. The Play listing shows more than 1 billion downloads and 2.53 million reviews, and Samsung's Knox documentation says it is the default email app on Galaxy devices in most regions. Litmus put Samsung's native client at 5% of the email client market in December 2017.

Does Samsung Itself Collect Your Email Data?

Samsung says no. The Samsung Email Privacy Notice, effective April 7, 2025, settles the point in two sentences: "Samsung does not collect personal data and only stores it in the app on the device for as long as you use it. If you delete the app from your phone, that data will be deleted along with the app."

The Google Play data safety section matches that claim. It declares "No data shared with third parties," "No data collected," and "Data is encrypted in transit." The developer supplies those labels itself, and they match the notice.

The notice adds one warning: Samsung Email "allows you to connect to third-party mail servers (for example, Microsoft Outlook). These third-party mail servers may collect personal data from or about you." Samsung is not the party watching you. Your mail provider and the senders of the messages you open are. Compare that with GMX, whose privacy notice describes consent based ad profiling of commercial mail, covered in our GMX read receipts review.

Gmail in Samsung Email vs the Gmail App

A Gmail account read in Samsung Email follows Samsung's image setting, not Google's. Google's Workspace page on the image URL proxy allowlist says "Gmail uses Google's secure proxy servers to serve images that might be included in these messages." Google's consumer Gmail image help adds that "Senders can't use image loading to get information about your computer or location," then concedes that "Sometimes, senders may know whether you've opened an email that has an image."

Neither page says the proxy extends to other apps. Samsung Email downloads the message itself, over the POP3 or IMAP support its Play listing describes for personal accounts, and renders it with its own settings. We did not capture network traffic to see which servers Samsung Email contacts for a Gmail message, so read the table below as documented behavior, not a lab result.

The receipt rows come from Google's read receipt help page, which says "Read receipts are only available to work or school accounts" and that if you see no prompt, the receipt was sent automatically. The proxy keeps your computer and location details from the sender, in Google's words. It does not hide the open itself, which is why open tracking still works in Gmail. Our guide to whether someone can tell you read their email covers every signal a sender can collect.

How to Block Read Receipts and Tracking Pixels in Samsung Email

You cannot switch read receipts off inside Samsung Email, but you can cut off pixels and ask the right person about receipts. Labels below are Samsung's and Microsoft's.

Turn off Show images (every account)

1. Open Samsung Email and tap ≡ (Menu) at the top left.
2. Tap Settings, then the account you want to change.
3. Switch Show images off. Repeat for each account, since the toggle is per account.
4. Leave it off for marketing mail. Turning it on for one trusted message means turning it on for the whole account, so switch it back afterward.

Stop automatic receipts on a work account

1. Ask your Exchange or Microsoft 365 administrator to run Set-CASMailbox -Identity you@company.com -ActiveSyncSuppressReadReceipt $true for your mailbox.
2. On Exchange Server 2019, check that the server runs Cumulative Update 14 or later, or replies and forwards can still return a receipt.
3. Do not rely on Never send a response in Outlook on the web; Microsoft says that setting is not used by Exchange ActiveSync.

Add a network layer

Android's Private DNS setting can point every app on the phone at a filtering resolver that refuses known tracking domains. In the Gmail app that approach is largely blind, because Gmail serves images through Google's proxy servers. Samsung documents no such proxy, though we did not test whether a resolver catches pixels opened in Samsung Email. Either way, a resolver only blocks hosts on its list. Our guide to blocking email tracking on iPhone and Android walks through the setup and its limits.

If you also read Gmail on a computer

Desktop Gmail is where tracker blocking extensions work. Gblock, Ugly Email, PixelBlock and Trocker all run in a desktop browser on Gmail's website, and none of them runs inside Samsung Email or any other Android mail app. Ugly Email, PixelBlock and Trocker are free and mark tracked messages with an icon. Gblock blocks known tracking pixels while other images keep loading, strips tracking from links, and updates its blocklist without a new extension release. We compare all four in our Gmail tracking blocker comparison.

What This Means for Your Inbox

On a Galaxy phone, the leak depends on the account more than the app. Samsung Email itself makes few promises and, according to its privacy notice, collects nothing. A work mailbox on Exchange can still confirm every receipt request you open, silently, by default. A personal account leaks through pixels the moment Show images is on.

Pixels are also the bigger of the two channels. A read receipt needs the sender to ask and leaves a visible header. A tracking pixel needs nothing from you except an open with images on, and it leaves no trace you can see. Switching Show images off removes that channel in Samsung Email. Switching to the Gmail app swaps it for Google's proxy, which hides your network details but still lets the open register.

The Quick Answer

Can you request a Samsung Email read receipt? No; Samsung's moderator said the option is not available, and no newer Samsung page adds one. Does Samsung Email send read receipts? On Exchange work accounts the server sends them automatically by default, per Microsoft's documentation, and only your administrator can change that. For IMAP accounts Samsung documents nothing. Does Samsung Email track you? Samsung says it collects no personal data. Senders can still track your opens through remote images whenever Show images is on, so turn it off for every account.