Open rate
Open rate is the share of delivered emails that were opened.
It is measured with a tiny hidden image in the email. Apple Mail's Mail Privacy Protection downloads that image when the email arrives, not when it is read. So many emails look opened when they were not, and open rates look higher than the truth.
Treat open rate as a rough warning light, not a goal. If it drops sharply, check your email deliverability. For cold email, judge by reply rate; for newsletters, by clicks and replies. Your aim is to get replies, not opens.
Go deeper
- How to get replies to cold emailsGet replies to cold emails when you get few or none: count bounces and replies per 100 people instead of opens, test whether you land in spam, verify your list and email one person per company, rewrite to under 80 words with one true line and one small ask, follow up 3 times, and judge each version after 1,000 people every Sunday.
- How to grow a newsletter from scratchGrow a newsletter from scratch with no audience and no budget: one clear line on who it is for, a free beehiiv signup page, 100 personal invitations and 2 posts a day, recommendation swaps, and a Sunday count of replies and new readers.
What links here
Sources
- Protect email privacy in Mail on Mac, Apple Support, checked 24 September 2026
Last checked 24 September 2026.