How we count opens,
in plain English
An image loading is not the same as a person reading. EmailSavy shows four states, and we would rather show a smaller honest number than a big wrong one.
The four states
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Read | Strong evidence a person read it: they clicked a link (and it was not a scanner), they replied and we have the reply's real arrival time from Gmail, or the email was opened from a real device on two separate occasions at least 30 minutes apart. |
| Opened (likely) | Gmail loads a message's images through Google's servers when the recipient opens it, so for a Gmail reader that load is the only sign of an open. When Gmail (or, less often, a mail app) loads the images at least 5 minutes after you sent, from a network that is not a scanner or your own, we call it likely opened. It is never called Read, and we show no location or device for it, because the address belongs to Google. It can be wrong: for example you re-opening your own sent mail on a device without the extension. |
| Delivered / preview | Something touched the email, but we cannot confirm a person read it. For example Apple Mail loaded the images in advance, Gmail loaded them within the first 5 minutes of sending (its own delivery-time scan), or a mail service or a security scanner fetched it. |
| Not opened | No activity at all, other than your own views of the email, which are ignored. |
What we do not count as a read (or as opened)
- Gmail in the first 5 minutes. Gmail also scans messages when they arrive (in our data most Gmail loads happen 5 to 10 seconds after sending). Those show as Delivered / preview. Whatever the time, the “city” of a Gmail load belongs to Google, so we show Via Gmail and never a location.
- Apple Mail Privacy Protection. Apple loads images for the recipient in advance, whether or not they ever open the email. We show Apple Mail privacy: location hidden.
- Security scanners such as Barracuda, Mimecast, Proofpoint and Microsoft Safe Links, and any open or click that comes from a cloud or security-vendor network (for example Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Cisco). Their location is never shown.
- Your own views of the email, for example looking at your Sent folder, and any open or click from the network you sent it from.
- Opens in the first 30 seconds after you press Send from a direct source: that is almost always automatic.
Those events are still stored, and each email's page lists them with a label. Nothing is hidden or deleted; they just do not count as reads.
Clicks
A click counts if it did not come from a scanner. We ignore a click that arrives within 10 seconds of sending, a click flagged as a bot, and several different links clicked within 3 seconds of each other, which is what a scanner does. Click tracking is part of the free plan.
Replies
The extension notices a reply while you have Gmail open, but the moment it notices is not the moment the reply arrived, and it can mistake an older message in the thread for a reply. So a reply is shown as Replied (unconfirmed) and is not counted as a read, unless we have the reply's real arrival time from the Gmail message itself, that time is after you sent the email, and the replier is someone other than you. Replies are never used to work out when something was read. Checking your tracked threads in the background needs you to connect your Gmail; that is not switched on yet. Reply detection works in Gmail; Outlook currently tracks opens and clicks only.
How the numbers on your dashboard are worked out
- Reads = separate occasions a person read it (confirmed). Several tracking images loading together count once.
- An email counts as opened once, on its first confirmed or likely open. Later loads of the same email (Gmail loads the images again each time it is shown) are not extra opens: they appear as “seen again” with the time it was last seen.
- Opened rate = emails that are Read or Opened (likely) / emails you sent in the last 30 days that are at least 24 hours old. The confirmed share (Read only) is shown next to it, for example “38% opened, 5% confirmed”.
- Confirmed read rate = emails with a confirmed read / emails you sent in the last 30 days that are at least 24 hours old.
- Click rate = emails with a counted click / those emails that contained a tracked link.
- Reply rate = emails with a confirmed reply / emails sent in the last 30 days that are at least 24 hours old. Unconfirmed replies are counted separately and shown next to it.
- Emails younger than 24 hours show in the counts but never in a rate, because they have had no time to be read.
- Alerts are sent only when an email becomes a confirmed read, or when a counted click arrives (we wait a few seconds first, so the first click of a scanner burst does not alert).
- Lists that load your emails use the newest 3,000; if you have more, the page says “newest N of M”.
What this means for you
Gmail readers will mostly show as Opened (likely), and Apple Mail readers as Delivered / preview, because that is all those mail apps let a tracker see. That is the price of not claiming what we cannot know. A click or a confirmed reply is the surest sign: ask for one in your email when it matters.
Limits you should know
- Automatic replies (out of office) cannot be told apart reliably from real ones. We keep only the first ~240 characters of a reply as a preview and do not analyse it, so an automatic reply that is confirmed counts as a reply.
- If you re-read your own sent mail on your phone, on a different network, or with an older extension version, Gmail loads the images from your own device and the email can look like a likely open until you use the newest extension, which blocks your own view at the source. Treat Opened (likely) as a likelihood, never as a confirmed read.
- A reply's arrival time is reported by the extension on your own computer. A modified client could overstate it, which only changes that account's own numbers.
- Confirmed reads are still few: so far only a small number of customer e-mails are confirmed reads, so the confirmed percentage rests on a small number and will move a lot as more people click or reply.
- “Your own network” means the exact network address you sent from. Your phone or a different network is not recognised, so opening your own sent mail elsewhere can show as likely opened.
- Alerts are sent for confirmed reads and counted clicks, not for likely opens.
What we store
For each tracked email we store the subject, sender and recipients, the web addresses of the links we track, the activity on it (image loads, clicks, with the time, network address, browser and device details sent with each request), and when a reply is detected, its first ~240 characters. We do not store the body of the emails you send. See the privacy policy.