iCloud says 55% opened. People opened 2.2%.
Every mailbox provider fakes opens in its own way. We split 71,602 delivered SaaS emails by the provider behind the recipient address and removed Apple proxy and scanner opens from each.
- Published 22 October 2026
- 71,602 delivered emails
- 5 provider groups
- 3 March to 14 October 2026
- Raw open rate
- Human open rate
At a glance
The numbers worth quoting
Key findings
What the data says
- 1iCloud open rates are meaningless
96.2% of open events were Apple's proxy. Yet 3.3% of iCloud emails got a human click, so the readers are there; their opens just cannot be seen.
- 2Gmail loses 60% of its opens
32.3% raw becomes 13% human. Gmail addresses read in Apple Mail and scanner signatures account for most of the gap.
- 3Business inboxes read the most
Company and custom domains had the highest human open rate (20.7%) and by far the highest human click rate (8.51%), along with the most scanner-only opens (12.1%).
- 4Outlook.com is the cleanest
Two thirds of Outlook.com and Hotmail open events (65.5%) came from people, and scanners alone opened only 0.3% of emails.
- 5Yahoo and AOL lean on Apple
62.3% of open events on Yahoo and AOL addresses came from Apple's proxy, the second highest after iCloud.
Who fires the opens
The machine mix behind each provider
- People
- Apple Mail proxy
- Security scanners
- Instant pre-fetch
Gmail: People 37.3%, Apple Mail proxy 40.4%, Security scanners 17.1%, Instant pre-fetch 5.2%
Business and other domains: People 41.5%, Apple Mail proxy 35.1%, Security scanners 13.2%, Instant pre-fetch 10.2%
Outlook.com and Hotmail: People 65.4%, Apple Mail proxy 34.0%, Security scanners 0.1%, Instant pre-fetch 0.5%
Yahoo and AOL: People 37.7%, Apple Mail proxy 62.3%, Security scanners 0.0%, Instant pre-fetch 0.0%
iCloud: People 3.4%, Apple Mail proxy 96.1%, Security scanners 0.5%, Instant pre-fetch 0.0%
Full table
Every provider figure in one place
| Provider | Delivered | Raw open | Human open | Apple only | Scanner only | Human click |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 51,769 | 32.3% | 13.0% | 8.6% | 9.4% | 1.43% |
| Business and other domains | 16,212 | 44.1% | 20.7% | 9.5% | 12.1% | 8.51% |
| Outlook.com and Hotmail | 2,040 | 27.5% | 17.0% | 10.3% | 0.3% | 3.58% |
| Yahoo and AOL | 1,036 | 34.5% | 18.2% | 16.2% | 0.0% | 2.51% |
| iCloud | 545 | 55.0% | 2.2% | 52.5% | 0.2% | 3.30% |
Apple only and scanner only are shares of delivered emails that were opened by that machine and nobody else. Human click rates differ by the mix of email types each group received, so compare open rates within a row, not click rates across rows.
What to do with this
How to read your own numbers by provider
Ignore opens on iCloud
Judge iCloud recipients on clicks, replies and product use. Their open is almost always Apple's proxy.
Expect scanners on company mail
Business domains sit behind gateways that check every link. Instant opens there are the gateway, not interest.
Keep Gmail and Outlook senders healthy
These providers judge you on engagement and complaint rates. Pace large sends (Meisa's Warm Send spreads them over up to 24 hours) and keep lists clean.
Methodology
How we measured it
Provider. Taken only from the domain of the recipient address, grouped into Gmail (gmail.com, googlemail.com), Outlook.com and Hotmail (outlook, hotmail, live, msn), Yahoo and AOL (yahoo, ymail, aol), iCloud (icloud, me, mac), and business and other domains. No other domain is reported, and company domains hosted on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 count as business domains.
Opens. The same classification as the True Open Rate Report: scanner signatures, Apple's proxy user agent, other opens within 10 seconds of delivery, and everything else as people.
Anonymization. Every provider group has at least 500 delivered emails, and no sender can be identified. See the full research methodology.
FAQ
Common questions
Which mailbox provider has the most fake email opens?
iCloud. 96.2% of open events on iCloud addresses came from Apple Mail Privacy Protection, so a 55% raw open rate shrinks to 2.2% once the proxy is removed.
Are Gmail open rates accurate?
More than most, but not fully. Gmail's own image proxy only fetches when a message is opened, so it is counted as a person. Still, Gmail addresses lost 19.3 points to filtering: 8.6 points to Apple's proxy (people reading Gmail in Apple Mail) and 9.4 points to scanner signatures.
Why do Outlook.com addresses have so few scanner opens?
Only 0.3% of Outlook.com and Hotmail emails were opened by a scanner alone in this data. Most of the machine opens on those addresses came from Apple Mail users, not from link checkers.
How do you know which provider a recipient uses?
From the domain of the recipient address only, grouped into five buckets: Gmail, Outlook.com and Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL, iCloud, and everything else. Company domains hosted on Google or Microsoft fall under business and other domains.
Raw versus human open rate by mailbox provider
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Quote it, chart it, link it
Meisa (2026). Email opens by mailbox provider. Meisa Research. https://meisa.io/research/opens-by-mailbox-provider
<a href="https://meisa.io/research/opens-by-mailbox-provider">Email opens by mailbox provider</a> (Meisa Research, 2026)
By mailbox provider (Meisa Research, 2026), Gmail addresses showed a 32.3% raw and 13% human open rate, Outlook.com 27.5% and 17%, Yahoo and AOL 34.5% and 18.2%, and iCloud 55% and 2.2%, where 96.2% of open events came from Apple's privacy proxy.
Free to quote, chart and republish with a link back to this page (CC BY 4.0).
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