Privacy Policy

1. The Short Version

• There is no account. We never ask for your name, email address, or password.
• The app does not sign in to your mailbox and cannot read your email. You write and send the message in Apple's Mail compose sheet, from your own email account.
• For every email you track we store the subject line you typed and, when that email is opened, information about the open.
• Open information is mostly information about the person you emailed: time, IP address, approximate location from that IP, and the mail app or device used.
• You choose who receives tracked emails, so you are responsible for following the rules that apply to you. See "Your Responsibility When You Track Emails" below.

2. What We Do Not Collect

• No account, no sign-up, no name, no email address, no password.
• No access to your mailbox. The app cannot read, search, or send from your email account. Sending happens in Apple's Mail compose sheet on your device.
• We do not collect the body of your tracked email or the addresses you send it to. Those stay between Apple Mail and your email provider.
• We do not use the advertising identifier (IDFA), do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and do not show the App Tracking Transparency prompt.
• We do not sell your data, and we do not share it for advertising.

3. Information We Collect

Your app identifier

The app creates a random identifier for your installation, derived from Apple's app transaction ID or from the profile ID of our subscription provider. It is not your name and it does not identify you by itself. It is stored on your device, in your iCloud key-value storage, and on our server, so that your tracked emails and your notifications stay together and stay with you if you reinstall the app.

Tracked emails

When you create a tracked email, our server stores:

• the subject line you typed
• a tracking ID for the invisible image in the email
• the time the tracked email was created
• the IP address of the device that created it

The IP address of the creating device is used for one purpose only: to recognize and filter out your own opens, so that you do not get a notification when you open your own email.

Opens

When a tracked email is opened and the mail app loads images, our server records:

• the time of the open
• the IP address the image was loaded from
• an approximate location derived from that IP address: country, region, city, and coordinates
• the mail client and device type reported in the user agent, when it is available

Opens that come from data center or proxy addresses are stored without a location. This is information about the recipient of your email. Section 4 explains how we handle it.

Push notifications

If you allow notifications, Apple issues a device token for your installation. We store that token on our server and use it to send you open notifications through the Apple Push Notification service.

Subscriptions

Purchases are processed by Apple. We never see your payment details. Subscription status and purchase events are handled for us by Adapty (adapty.io), which receives a profile ID together with device and purchase information. Apple Search Ads attribution collection is enabled through Adapty, so Adapty may also receive information from Apple about the ad campaign that led to an install.

App analytics and app integrity (Firebase)

The app uses three Firebase services from Google:

• Google Analytics for Firebase, without the advertising identifier. It collects an app instance ID, screen views, and in-app events such as onboarding completed, purchase started, succeeded, or failed, and email compose finished, along with an approximate location derived from your IP address and device and operating system information.
• Remote Config, which lets us change settings and content in the app without shipping an update.
• App Check with Apple App Attest, which confirms that requests to our server come from a genuine copy of the app and protects our service from abuse.

4. Information About the People You Email

Tracking works through an invisible image in the email. When your recipient's mail app loads images, our server receives that request and records the open as described above. Most of that data describes your recipient, not you.

We use it only to show the opens to you in the app and to notify you. We do not build profiles of recipients, do not use the data for advertising, and do not sell it.

To turn an IP address into an approximate location we send that IP address to the third-party service ip-api.com. Location from an IP address is approximate. It can point to an internet provider, a company network, a VPN, or a mail provider's proxy rather than to a person's real location. An open means images were loaded, not that anyone read the message, and forwarded copies can also register as opens.

5. Where the Data Is Stored

• Our server is hosted with Hetzner in the European Union, in Germany and Finland.
• The app also keeps your tracked emails on your iPhone.
• If iCloud is turned on for the app, those tracked emails are synced through your own iCloud account, in the app's private CloudKit database. That copy belongs to your Apple account. We cannot read it, and Apple's privacy policy applies to it.
• Your app identifier is also stored in your iCloud key-value storage.

6. How We Use the Data, and Our Legal Bases

In plain words:

• To provide the service you asked for: creating tracked emails, detecting opens, showing the open history in the app, and sending push notifications. The legal basis is performing our agreement with you.
• To keep the service accurate and protect it from abuse: filtering out your own opens, checking that requests come from a real copy of the app, and protecting our server. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a service that works and is not misused.
• To improve the app: analytics about screens and in-app events, and remote configuration. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in understanding which parts of the app people use.
• To handle your subscription: purchase and subscription status through Apple and Adapty. The legal basis is performing our agreement with you.
• Consent, where the law requires it: the notification permission you grant on your iPhone, and the analytics cookies on our website for visitors in the European Union, the United Kingdom, the EEA, and Switzerland.

You can object to processing that is based on our legitimate interest, and you can withdraw consent at any time, for example by turning notifications off in iPhone Settings.

7. Who Else Is Involved

We use a small number of service providers, each for one job:

• Apple: app distribution, purchases, push notification delivery, App Attest, and iCloud sync of your own data.
• Adapty: subscription status and purchase events, and Apple Search Ads attribution.
• Google (Firebase): analytics, Remote Config, and App Check.
• ip-api.com: turning the IP address of an open into an approximate location.
• Hetzner: hosting of our server in Germany and Finland.
• Cloudflare: hosting of this website.

We may also disclose data if the law requires it, for example in response to a valid legal request.

8. International Transfers

Our own server is in the European Union. Apple, Google, Adapty, and ip-api.com operate internationally, so data handled by them may be processed outside your country, including in the United States. These companies rely on their own published safeguards for such transfers.

9. How Long We Keep Data

• A tracked email and its opens are kept until you delete that email in the app, by swiping it away in the list, or until you ask us to delete your data. We do not delete them on a fixed schedule.
• To have everything we hold about your installation deleted, write to [email protected] and ask for deletion. Because there is no account, we may need extra information from you to find the right data before we can delete it.
• Copies stored on your iPhone and in your iCloud account are under your control. Deleting the app removes the local copy, and you can manage or remove the iCloud copy in your Apple account settings.

10. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to:

• tell you what data we hold about you and give you a copy
• correct data that is wrong
• delete your data
• stop processing that is based on our legitimate interest

Write to [email protected] and we will answer within a reasonable time. If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom and you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to your national data protection authority.

11. Your Responsibility When You Track Emails

You decide who receives a tracked email and why. The law that applies to you may require you to tell recipients that you track opens, or to get their consent first. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, for example, GDPR and ePrivacy rules can apply to tracking pixels in email. Meeting those requirements is your responsibility, not ours, and we cannot advise you on what your situation requires.

Do not use Email Tracker to follow, pressure, or spy on anyone, and do not use it for bulk unsolicited email. Our Terms of Use say the same thing, and we can cut off access to the tracking service for anyone who breaks this rule.

12. Children

Email Tracker is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13, or under 16 where local law sets that age. If you believe a child has used the app, contact us and we will delete the data.

13. Security

Data travels between the app and our server over encrypted connections, and App Check with Apple App Attest limits access to our service to genuine copies of the app. We take reasonable measures to protect the data we hold, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

14. This Website

email-tracker.app is a static website hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Cloudflare processes your IP address in order to serve the pages to you.

The website does not use analytics or advertising cookies. The only thing it saves in your browser is your light or dark theme choice, which stays in local storage and is never sent to us.

Links to the App Store take you to Apple, which applies its own privacy policy.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top of this page and publish the new version here. If a change is significant, we will point it out in the app.

16. Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints about this policy: [email protected]