POSTFIX is possible to detect when mail was read

Question

I have a problem that I need to check when in the morning the first mail of some account was read.

We are using POSTFIX mail server and system is UBUNTU. is this possible?

Answer 1

The answer is maybe.

Postfix cannot tell you when the email was read, but the email reader software may leave traces behind.

How does the user read the email? Is it via POP or IMAP or WEBMAIL?

Often these programs put log entries into /var/log/mail.log that can give you clues about when a client logged in and get you part of the way there.

Postfix may be configured to use MAILBOX type mailboxes, which put each email into an individual file, and you might check the modification time on the individual file.

Imap also keeps track of which emails have been read, but I don't think it tracks the date/time. You may need to do additional forensics for that.

All of this assumes you have root access to the mail server, of course.

It sounds like someone is telling you they did not read your email and you want to prove that they did. That usually does not work. Suck it up and next time, make a phone call, send a text message and then call their mother.