I assume your referring to delivery status notifications and not Data Source Name. Really abbreviations just are not clear, so we have to start by guessing.

On the toolbar > Options > Advanced > general and click the return receipts button.

Now for the bad news. Most mail server no longer send true Delivery Status Notifications. A side effect of SPAM is huge numbers of them causing some mail server to blacklist those that send them. Add to that the fact that return receipts are voluntary and you get a mail system about as full of delivery guarantees as snail mail.

Thank you, Matt, for the reply.

Yes. Good guess. (Was this a clue: dsn_settings add-on just downloaded?)  :)

I use Return Receipts occasionally, but prefer not to as they seem sorta rude.

I searched for and found the dsn_settings download, only to find out it wasn't compatible with current versions of Thunderbird after trying to install it.

Since most mail servers no longer send true delivery Status Notifications, might it be a good idea to present that nugget of knowledge when it is requested?

Regards, Steve

Why did you think you needed an add-on? The switch for a DSN request is built into Thunderbird.

Your add-on (how on earth did you find that?) says quite clearly "Works with Thunderbird 3.0 - 3.1.*" and we're currently on 38.5.0. I doubt any amount of tweaking of version numbers would make it work in a current version. ;-)

Zenos, thank you for your reply.

1st, the answer is in the subject line. I wanted to set the switch to default ON for all messages. Until problems with my ISP (or with Thunderbird) are resolved, I wanted a subtle way to know which messages were getting to their destinations.

I don't believe a global or default option exists in the current version.

2nd, I found it by searching...

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1002289 -and- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/dsn-settings/?src=dp-dl-oftenusedwith

3rd, clearly I must have missed that.

Regards, Steve

It's a checkbox. It is, for me, in both Windows and Linux installations, persistent or "sticky". I can't see any need for any additional tools to have it set by default. If you set yours and it subsequently clears itself then I'd look for an external agency such as CCleaner that might be scrubbing your settings files.

I have only one email provider who honours DSN, and it's only ever proven useful when corresponding with another user on the same email provider.

It is a check box when sending an individual message, but for one-time use only.

Version 38.4 running on XP-SP3 is not sticky like "Spell check as you type."

Tools / Options / General / Advanced, does not provide a check box to make it sticky. So, there doesn't appear to be a default or global option.

rsw1941 said

Since most mail servers no longer send true delivery Status Notifications, might it be a good idea to present that nugget of knowledge when it is requested? Regards, Steve

No! anyone with enough knowledge or search Fu to locate a DSN add-on will also have found lots of suggestions that DNS is largely turned off. I would guess one of the reasons the original author gave up back at Version 3 was that so few supported DSN it was not worth the effort.

So perhaps instead of wasting time on symantec and who should be told about obscure parts of email. (we are still having trouble explaining IMAP and POP). What is the underlying problem your trying to address? That may be far more tractable

I have just done the tweak to allow this add-on to be used in TB38 and to my surprise, it appears to work.

If you provide me an email address, by private message if you prefer, I can email to you this tweaked version.

However the add-on states that it simply exposes functionality already present in Thunderbird; it doesn't claim to add or change any functionality with regard to DSN requests. Following this through, if you open the config editor and search for "dsn", you'll find several entries. The relevant one, mail.dsn.always_request_on defaults to false, so double-click it to swap states. All the add-on does is expose these dsn related on/off switches via a GUI with checkboxes. I can't see anything to suggest that the add-on would actively set DSN at the time of sending.

Mine is sticky, as you'd expect by finding this switch in the config editor. As Matt says, DSN is largely futile. However if your setting isn't sticky it's a fair bet that something else on your system is wiping the setting.

Zenos, thank you very much, but I think I'll just try to deal with this another way for the moment.

Regards,

Same problem. I have 38.7.1 and i noticed I no longer receive DSN even if I select it from the pull down menu. It's fairly recent. I haven't tested the read receipt yet. If that doesn't work, any suggestions? If I have to do an add-on, i might just wait since I'm getting a new laptop soon.