How to tell when someone opens emails you send them (using hidden trackers or read requests)
You may not always want this, but there will probably come a time when you want to know if the recipient opens an email you send, such as a job application or support request. It’s actually easy to implement and you can use an email client on your device right now that supports email tracking.
Read receipts are popular in instant messaging services like Apple Messages (for iMessage), but they also work in some email clients, but in different ways. Apple Mail itself doesn’t even offer an email tracking feature. However, many third-party email clients support receiving notifications when someone reads (or at least opens) an email you’ve sent.
Most of the email clients listed below use hidden tracking pixels, which are downloaded as images inside emails, to determine if someone opens an email. Others will be less secretive and give the recipient the opportunity to approve your read request.
While I focus on email tracking from an iOS and iPadOS perspective, many services also support Android, macOS, Windows, and any web browser. If you don’t like the idea of tracking yourself, I’ve added a section at the bottom with details on how to dodge read receipt trackers.
1. Canarian post
Canary Mail is the email client I use for my daily emails and it just supports read receipts. While I’m not sure why it’s called Canary Mail, there is a cybersecurity term called canary tokens that keeps track of data with a kind of hidden fingerprint, and that’s how Canary Mail implements read receipts – using an invisible image.
Canary Mail read receipts are a paid feature, so unless you’re on free access from day one or signing up for a Setapp bundle, it costs $2.99/month or $19.99/year. But keeping track of which emails you’ve sent is open is just one of many useful professional features, and there’s always a 30-day free trial to try something out before committing to a subscription.
With a paid subscription, Read Reports are enabled by default, but you can turn them on or off in the in-app authoring settings whenever you want. When this setting is enabled, every time you send an email, an invisible image with tracking information is sent with it. When an email is opened, Canary Mail will send you a notification to let you know when it happened.
Canary Mail’s read receipt implementation prioritizes privacy – Canary only shows when and if an email has been read. Canary does not collect or share any related metadata such as IP addresses, location or device information, number of times an email has been opened, etc.
If you miss a notification, you’ll see checkmarks next to an email in your Sent Inbox if Canary Mail can determine that the recipient has opened it. You can also open the Canary Mail dashboard to see a section dedicated to Read Receipts, highlighting the message and when it was opened.
2. Email surge
Spike Email is another email client that supports read receipts. The interface takes a bit of getting used to, as it looks and functions more like a “chat”app, but its email tracking feature works much like Canary Mail, where it includes an invisible tracking pixel in every email sent, which is treated like an image.
Read receipts are enabled by default, so there is nothing for you to enable. However, Spike will not send you a notification whenever a recipient opens an email you sent. Instead, it shows a small eye icon next to open emails in the chat view and in your inboxes. If this is a group discussion, the eyeball will be displayed whenever at least one member of the group opens the email.
By clicking on the eyeball, you will see when your email was sent and opened.
The great thing about Spike Email is that it’s free. It’s limited to two email accounts, but you can upgrade to another for $8/month or $60/year, or if you want unlimited accounts, $16/month or $120/year. Also, if the other person you email doesn’t have Spike, it will show your profile picture, profile name, and “Chat@Spike”as a signature, but you can remove this via “Signature”in each account in the app. settings.
3. Polipost
Polymail is another email client I like when it comes to read tracking. It works just like other clients, using a hidden image with a tracking link. It also sends you notifications like Canary Mail whenever someone opens an email and also provides a handy activity feed to show you all open emails. Going beyond other email clients, Polymail even tells you how many times someone opened an email and when each time.
In addition to the activity feed, you will see a lightning bolt icon (with the number of openings) next to conversations in any mailbox if it contains a message successfully tracked by Polymail. Clicking the lightning bolt icon in an email thread opens a window that is displayed each time the recipient opens the email.
Email tracking is enabled by default, but you can disable the lightning bolt icon while drafting to skip it for this email. You can turn “Track messages by default”on or off in the app’s settings. You can also use the in-app settings to switch notifications from first read only to all reads or none.
As with other clients, there are some caveats. While there is a free plan, you are automatically signed up for a risk-free seven-day free trial of the basic plan when you subscribe to Polymail, which is limited to two connected email accounts. If you don’t want to keep using the basic plan, which costs $13/month or $120/year, your account must upgrade to the free plan. If not, Polymail will ask you to send them a help message. There is also a more expensive premium plan with up to 20 accounts.
Note that the free plan doesn’t include an activity feed, and it won’t tell you which contact opened an email from a group conversation (aka per-recipient tracking). All other tracking features are fair game.
- Install Polymail: iOS | iPadOS | macOS | Windows
- Polymail is working on an Android app (subscribe to updates)
4. Mail Tracker – Email Tracker
If you’re an iPhone or iPad user and really like the default Mail app, you can use Mail Tracker as a secondary app to receive read receipts for emails you send.
You don’t need to create an account or anything the first time you open it. Just hit the compose button, enter a subject line, and the usual compose mail window will appear where you can add contacts, compose your message, and send an email. A large watermark appears next to the tracking link, a limitation of the free plan. Removing the watermark while drafting removes the tracker.
When a person opens an email you sent, you get a notification. You can also see how often someone has opened a message sent via Mail Tracker through the main interface of Mail Tracker.
Mail Tracker seems a bit more touchy than the apps above, as you’ll also get a read warning if you open an email yourself from your sent items folder. And it’s impossible to tell if that’s the case unless you upgrade from a free plan to a lifetime license for $29.99. If you don’t want to use a separate email client on iOS or iPadOS, you might be worth paying $29.99, especially since it provides details like the device it was opened from, the device’s general location, and the exact time. it was read.
5. Other Email Clients to Consider
There are other apps you can use to keep track of open emails. However, many of them are expensive, for example:
- Boomerang ($19.99/month or $179.99/year): Tracking works with Gmail, Hotmail, and Outlook accounts.
- Newton Mail ($49.99/year): Tracking works on Gmail, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, iCloud, and IMAP accounts.
- EmailHawk ($64.99/year): Uses the iOS or iPadOS mail app, like Mail Tracker.
- ProtonMail (Free, but there are paid plans): Allows you to add a read receipt request to every draft, but the recipient must approve it when they open the email or you won’t receive a notification. The approval option only appears for other ProtonMail accounts.
- Microsoft Outlook (available with a Microsoft 365 subscription): As with ProtonMail, you can add a request to receive read receipts that the recipient must approve in order for you to receive any tracking information. Recipients can also set their account to always or never reply.
Readdle used to support read receipts in its Spark Mail app, but the company has disabled the feature and has no plans to bring it back. However, if you were one of the first beta users of the app, you will still be able to use read receipts in the beta.
Block others from being tracked when you read emails
If you want to track open emails but don’t want anyone to do the same with the emails you open, a few email clients can block trackers on their tracks.
For example, the default Apple Mail app received tracking blocking in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Apple doesn’t fully tout the email read receipt blocking feature, but says it can prevent someone from seeing when they open your email.
The emails you receive may include removed content that allows the sender of the email to receive information about you. When you open an email, information about your Mail activity may be collected by the sender without transparency or control over what information is shared. Email senders can learn when and how many times you opened their email, whether you forwarded email, your Internet Protocol (IP) address, and other data that can be used to build a profile of your behavior and determine your location.
If you’re using the default Mail app on iOS or iPadOS, you can turn it on by going to Settings -> Mail -> Privacy Protection -> Protect Mail Activity.
Apart from Apple, Edison Mail, OnMail and ProtonMail block spy trackers by default. In addition, the Polymail above allows you to turn off the tracking of incoming messages in the application settings.
Gmail also supports read receipts, but only for work and school Google Workspace accounts. Speaking of Gmail, any Gmail user can go into their settings and disable “Ask before displaying external images”to prevent invisible tracking pixels from automatically loading.
Microsoft Outlook also has an option to automatically stop downloading external images.
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