Your Email Open Rate Is Not What You Think It Is — Apple Mail Privacy Changed Everything

This article reflects professional analysis and industry research. Individual results vary.

The email open rate myth is five years old now, and it is still everywhere. "We have a 45 percent open rate" gets said in boardrooms and client reports every day. For lists with lots of Apple Mail users, that number is wrong. One Apple update created this myth. It changed how open tracking works for most email users worldwide.

The Myth: Your Open Rate Reflects How Many People Read Your Email

Email open tracking has always worked one way. A tiny hidden image sits in every email, and it is called a tracking pixel. When an email client loads that image, an "open" is logged. For decades, that was a fair way to tell if someone had seen the email.

In September 2021, Apple launched Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) with iOS 15. MPP changed how Apple Mail deals with new email. Images used to load only when a user opened a message. Now Apple's servers grab every image as soon as the email lands. That includes tracking pixels. So the "open" is logged when Apple's server grabs the pixel. The user may never have seen the email.

This is not a small issue. Litmus email client market share data puts Apple Mail at about 58 percent of all email opens worldwide. Now think about your own email platform. More than half of every open since September 2021 came from Apple's servers. It did not come from a human.

The Evidence: How Much Are Open Rates Inflated?

The inflation numbers are big. Data Innovation looked at post-MPP email data. It found that Apple MPP lifts reported open rates by 35 percent on lists with lots of Apple Mail users. The DMA Email Benchmarking Report 2023 saw a sharp jump in average open rates, from 19 percent in 2021 to 31.83 percent in 2022. That was the first full year of MPP. The 12-point jump did not mean readers were suddenly more keen. It meant Apple's servers were grabbing tracking pixels at scale.

Litmus makes the most quoted email client market share data in the field. It named Apple MPP as the main cause of open rate inflation. That came within months of the September 2021 launch. Its analysis showed that by early 2022, Apple Mail Privacy Protection was the top email "client" for open events. It made up more than 52 percent of logged opens. Newer Litmus data, as of early 2025, puts Apple Mail at about 58 percent market share. MPP is now baked deep into the Apple world.

After the launch, Mailchimp and other big platforms changed their dashboards to flag Apple MPP opens on their own. The data was there. Many marketers did not update their reports to reflect it.

What Is Actually True: Four Metrics That Replaced Open Rate

The email marketing field has moved on. Open rate is no longer a safe primary engagement signal. The metrics that took its place tell you more anyway.

The beehiiv analysis of Apple MPP impact says to split your list by email client. Report on Apple Mail users on their own, since their opens are not reliable. Then report on non-Apple Mail users. Their open data is still a useful rough guide. This takes minutes to set up in most email tools. And you get a far truer picture of real engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Should I stop tracking open rates entirely?

A: Do not stop tracking them. Just stop making them your main engagement signal. Open rates still help with trends on non-Apple Mail groups. They also help you watch deliverability. A sudden drop in open rate can point to a delivery issue, even when the raw number is inflated. Use open rates as one input of many. Do not use them as the headline metric.

Q: How do I identify how much Apple MPP is affecting my specific list?

A: Most big email platforms now split opens by email client, or flag MPP on events. That group includes Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and HubSpot. Pull a campaign report and look at how many of your logged opens say Apple MPP or Apple Mail. If that share is above 50 percent, your total open rate is heavily inflated. Do not use it for campaign choices.

Q: Is this problem likely to get worse?

A: The trend suggests privacy limits on email tracking will keep growing. Google has pre-fetched images in Gmail for years. Its approach differs from Apple MPP. Other platforms and countries are moving the same way. The fix is simple. Build email measurement around actions that need a real person: clicks, replies, conversions, and revenue.