Best Email Tracking Apps for iPhone: An Honest Roundup

Search for an email tracker and you will find the same handful of famous names. Most of them are well-established products, and most of them are not what an iPhone user is looking for. They are Chrome extensions, Gmail add-ons or CRM tools, built for someone sitting at a computer with Gmail open in a browser tab.

This article sorts them out. It explains what each tool is actually for, which ones genuinely work when you send mail from an iPhone, and which ones are a better choice than an iPhone app if your work lives somewhere else.

Disclosure: this article is published by the makers of Email Tracker, an iPhone app that is one of the tools compared below. Everything said about other products comes from those vendors’ own websites and help pages, and is limited to what those pages state.

Three different shapes of “email tracking on iPhone”

Before the list, it helps to know that “works on iPhone” means three quite different things.

An iPhone app that composes the email. The pixel goes in as the message is written on the phone. No browser, no extension, no dependency on one mail provider.

An add-on inside the Gmail mobile app. The tracking is tied to Gmail. If you use Apple Mail, it does not apply.

A desktop product with a companion phone app. The browser extension does the tracking and the phone app shows the results. The sending still happens at a computer.

Most of the confusion here comes from treating all three as the same thing.

Email Tracker

What it is: an iPhone app for sending tracked emails through Apple Mail.

You open the app, tap Send Email and type a subject. Apple Mail’s own compose sheet opens with an invisible tracking pixel already embedded. You write the message, choose recipients and send from your own address. Any account added to Apple Mail works, including Gmail, Outlook, iCloud and Yahoo addresses. When the recipient’s mail app loads remote images, you get a push notification, and each tracked email shows an open count plus a history with date and time, approximate location from the IP address, and the device or mail client where available.

Requirements: iPhone with iOS 17 or later, and the Apple Mail app installed with at least one account signed in, because the compose sheet belongs to Apple. There is no account to create and the app never signs in to or reads your mailbox.

What it is not: there is no desktop version, no browser extension and no Android app. Only emails composed through the app are tracked, so replies typed elsewhere carry no pixel. The Gmail and Outlook apps cannot be used to compose, although those addresses work once added to Apple Mail.

Best for: people who send from a phone and use Apple Mail. How to track email opens on iPhone is the full walkthrough.

Mailtrack by Mailsuite

What it is: a long-established email tracker built around Gmail.

Mailtrack’s homepage describes it as the original email tracker for Gmail, living inside the Gmail you already use, and it is installed as a browser extension. Its FAQ says Mailtrack is also available as an add-in for Outlook with the same delivery and open tracking. Mailsuite’s installation help lists Chrome, Edge, Opera and Vivaldi as compatible browsers.

For phones, Mailtrack’s homepage states that there is a Mailtrack app for Android and iPhone published by Mailsuite, for sending tracked emails and getting open notifications on the go. Mailsuite’s mobile page describes the app as a standalone application and its setup step as connecting the Gmail account linked to Mailsuite. Mailsuite also offers a mobile add-on that works inside the official Gmail app.

Best for: people whose email life is Gmail, on a computer or in the Gmail mobile app.

Boomerang

What it is: a family of email productivity tools, best known for scheduled sending and follow-up reminders.

Boomerang’s site describes tools that work in your browser or in its mobile apps. Boomerang for iPhone is a standalone email app rather than an add-on to Apple Mail, and its page advertises tracking email opens with read receipts, added straight from the iPhone. Its iOS help explains that when you add an account you choose between Gmail or Google Workspace and Outlook or Office 365. iCloud and Yahoo are not listed.

Best for: people who are willing to change email apps and want send later, snooze and reminders alongside open tracking, with a Google or Microsoft account.

Streak

What it is: a CRM built directly into Gmail.

Streak lives in Gmail as a browser extension and organizes your email into pipelines. Its own blog post about the mobile add-on says that if you have installed Streak and completed onboarding on desktop, you can install the Streak app to access your pipelines on mobile, and that Streak has built a mail client into its iOS app.

Best for: small teams that run their whole sales process inside Gmail on computers and want deal tracking, not just open tracking.

HubSpot Sales

What it is: email tracking as one feature of a full CRM.

HubSpot’s knowledge base sets out the ways to install it: the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension for Gmail in Chrome, the Office 365 add-in for Microsoft 365-hosted accounts, which requires a connected inbox, and the Outlook desktop add-in, which HubSpot describes as only available in classic Outlook for Windows and in maintenance mode.

HubSpot’s own documentation is explicit about Apple: HubSpot Sales does not support Apple Mail, because Apple does not provide support for third-party developers creating Apple Mail add-ons.

Best for: teams that already run HubSpot and want tracking tied to contact records and reporting.

Comparison

How to choose

• You send from your iPhone, through Apple Mail. An iPhone app that composes the message is the only shape that fits. Extensions and Gmail add-ons cannot reach Apple Mail.
• Your team lives in Gmail on computers. A Gmail-based tool is a better fit, and will give you more than open tracking.
• You already use a CRM. Use its tracking. Contact records and reporting are worth more than a standalone notification.
• You need Android or Windows too. An iPhone-only app is the wrong tool. Pick a browser-based one.

What none of them can do

This is worth saying plainly, because every product in this category has the same ceiling.

Pixel tracking only detects an open when the recipient’s mail app loads remote images. Microsoft’s support documentation says Outlook is configured by default to block automatic picture downloads from the internet, and names tracking pixels as a reason. Many corporate mail systems do the same.

Apple Mail Privacy Protection goes further. Apple’s own description says remote content is downloaded in the background by default, regardless of whether the recipient engages with the email. Email Tracker deliberately ignores that pre-fetch so it never reports a false open, which means opens by those recipients usually cannot be detected at all. See Apple Mail Privacy Protection and email tracking.

And an open is an image load, not a reading. It does not say who opened the message or whether they opened an attachment, forwards register as opens, and location is approximate. For the honest picture of every method, see how to know if someone read your email and read receipts vs email tracking.

Test whatever you choose

Every tool here behaves differently with different recipients, so test before you rely on one. Send a real email to a friend on another network and device, and see what registers. Emailing yourself on the same phone is the classic mistake, and with Email Tracker it will not register at all, because opens from your own device and network are ignored on purpose. How to test email tracking covers the method.

If the iPhone is where you work

Email Tracker is a free download from the App Store for iPhone on iOS 17 or later. It needs no sign-up, sends from the address you already use through Apple Mail, and notifies you when a tracked email is opened. Some features are part of an in-app subscription. If one of the other tools above matches your setup better, use that one instead.