Reminders about unresponded emails?

In my daily e-mail often happens the following scenario: I send somebody an email which describes some problem and requests an action from the recipient. Typically, I wish to ensure that this action was taken, or at least somehow resolved; when this happens, the email recipient should notify me with a response email about what was done, and what was not and why.

But, sometimes emails don't get read by the recipient, or he forgets to reply to me. At the same time, I cannot constantly keep in memory the list of all emails for which I was waiting an answer and still didn't receive it. So I wonder, is there in any email client such a feature which would allow me to somehow mark specific outgoing emails as "demanding reply"? The mail client could in this case notify me if any "demanding reply" emails still aren't replied for a long time.

ulidtko

Posted 2011-01-17T10:14:16.320

Reputation: 2 356

There are so many ways to do this thing yourself without having to resolve to features in email clients! Do a little research online on how to organize your email. There are valid options given below but you won't accept any. The problem is with you, not any system, not any of the people here trying to help. – Jakke – 2014-06-20T22:46:38.520

What I would do if your mail client supported Tags or Labels is to label outgoing messages with a "Waiting" tag. Then, you can check on a regular basis which e-mail has not been responded to. I do this in Gmail, which basically looks like this

– slhck – 2011-01-17T11:12:51.380

Did anything solve your problem? If so, could you please accept an answer? If not, could you tell us, what it left unsolved? – Martin Ueding – 2012-06-19T07:45:30.413

1@queueoverflow no, the problem remains unsolved for me. – ulidtko – 2012-06-19T08:45:43.643

Answers

Using MS Outlook at work I mark such mails I send as follow-up with a reminder for myself and optionally even for the recepient, see THIS MICROSOFT ARTICLE

släcker

Posted 2011-01-17T10:14:16.320

Reputation: 546

I save the sent emails into my inbox. Together with the inbox zero strategy I know, that anything in the inbox is not done yet. The replies are attached to the original message in thread view. So I know by the little thread arrow that there was a reply. If it is done, I can delete the whole thread.

Martin Ueding

Posted 2011-01-17T10:14:16.320

Reputation: 1 857

1This reminds me of Paul Graham's words "E-mail is not a messaging protocol, it's a to-do list. Or at least my inbox is a to-do list, and e-mail is a protocol of putting stuff on that list.". – ulidtko – 2012-03-30T11:01:34.940

You can always try Mail-Trail. It is a Chrome extension that automatically sends your recipients follow-up reminders about unanswered messages. No need for you to nag them anymore or wonder if you got a response or not.

Code Monkey

Posted 2011-01-17T10:14:16.320

Reputation: 111