How to Track Emails: Tools, Methods & Best Practices

You hit send. Now what?

For most people, that's where visibility ends. The email disappears into someone's inbox and you're left guessing — did they see it? Did they care? Are they even remotely interested in what you sent?

Email tracking fixes that. It tells you when your email was opened, how many times, on what device, and whether anyone clicked your links. For sales teams, that's the difference between a perfectly timed follow-up email and another message sent into the void.

This guide covers everything: how email tracking software works, how to set it up in Gmail, Outlook, and Apple Mail, the best tools available in 2026, and how to pick the right one for your workflow.

• Email tracking tells you when recipients open your emails and click your links, using invisible tracking pixels and trackable URLs
• You can track outgoing emails in Gmail or Outlook using browser extensions or built-in CRM tools — and know when your emails are opened in real time
• To trace the origin of an incoming email, check the raw message headers in your email client
• The best email tracking software in 2026 includes NetHunt CRM, Mailtrack, HubSpot Sales, Streak, GMass, and Hunter MailTracker
• If you use Gmail for sales, a CRM with built-in tracking (like NetHunt CRM offers) gives you more than open rates — it connects every signal to a deal

What is email tracking?

Email tracking is the process of monitoring what happens after you send an email. At its most basic, it tells you whether a contact opened your message. At its most useful, it shows you how many times they opened it, when, on what device, which links they clicked, and — in a CRM context — how that engagement fits into the broader sales picture.

Tracking turns email into a two-way data channel and gives you valuable insight into your email interactions that you'd otherwise never see.

There are two distinct things people mean when they say "track an email":

• Tracking outgoing emails — monitoring opens, clicks, and engagement on emails you send. This is what sales reps, marketers, and founders use to time follow-ups and measure campaign performance.
• Tracing incoming emails — finding the origin, sender, or routing path of an email you received. This is useful for verifying sender authenticity, investigating suspicious messages, or diagnosing deliverability issues.

How does email tracking work?

Email tracking relies on a few technical methods, each capturing a different type of engagement signal.

Tracking pixels and read receipts: how open tracking works

The most common method. When you send a tracked email, your email tracking software embeds a tiny, invisible 1×1 pixel image — a tracking pixel — somewhere in the message body. When the contact opens the email, their email client makes a request to the tracking server to load that image. That request is logged as an open — including the timestamp, device type, and sometimes location.

The contact never sees the pixel. It's invisible by design. But the moment the email is opened and images load, the mail tracker knows — and sends you a live notification.

Read receipts work differently. They're an explicit request for confirmation that requires the recipient's email client to notify you when the message is read. Unlike tracking pixels, read receipts require the recipient's cooperation — many email clients let users decline them. They're less reliable as a tracking mechanism for sales use, but useful in enterprise environments.

Link tracking

For click tracking, the tool replaces every link in your email with a redirect URL. When the contact clicks a link, the request first passes through the tracking server — which logs the click — and then redirects them to the original destination. The whole process takes milliseconds and is invisible to the user.

This tells you not just that someone clicked, but which link they clicked, when, and how many times. Some email tracking software also captures the number of emails forwarded when a tracked link is accessed from a different device or location shortly after the first open — a useful signal that your message was shared internally.

Enable tracking before you send

Most email tracking software lets you enable tracking per email, or set it on by default for every email you send. In tools like NetHunt CRM, you toggle open and click tracking directly from the Gmail compose window before hitting send.

Why track your emails?

On the surface, knowing whether someone opened your email feels like a nice-to-have. In practice, it changes how you work — and boosts team productivity significantly.

Time smarter follow-ups

Without tracking, follow-up emails are guesswork. You wait a few days, send another email, hope for the best. With tracking, you know exactly when someone opens your emails — and you can follow up while you're still top of mind.

If a prospect who went quiet three weeks ago just opened your proposal for the fourth time this morning, that's your signal to send a follow up email. That conversation has a much higher chance of going somewhere than a cold follow-up sent on a Tuesday because it's been a while.

Understand prospect engagement

Opens and clicks are behavioral signals. A prospect who opens your email seven times in two days is telling you something — even if they haven't replied. A prospect who hasn't opened anything in three weeks is telling you something too.

You learn what subject lines get opened, which content gets clicked, and which messages get ignored. Over time, that shapes better outreach and improves your response rates.

Optimize your email campaigns

For teams sending sequences or campaigns, tracking data is how you improve. If one email in a five-step sequence consistently gets low open rates, that's the subject line or send time to fix. If a specific link gets clicked far more than others, that's the content your audience actually cares about.

Without tracking, you're optimizing blind. Email tracking notifications give you the feedback loop that makes campaigns better over time.

Know when a deal is heating up

In a sales context, email tracking isn't just about the email — it's about the deal. When a prospect re-opens a proposal you sent two weeks ago, or clicks your pricing link for the first time, those are buying signals. Sales reps who catch these alerts and act on them close faster than those who don't.

This is where CRM-integrated tracking — like NetHunt — pulls ahead of standalone tools. Instead of seeing an isolated open notification, you see that signal in the context of a pipeline stage, a conversation history, and a contact record. The difference matters.

How to track outgoing emails (opens & clicks)

Setting up email tracking takes a few minutes regardless of which email client you use. Here's how it works across the three most common platforms.

How to track emails in Gmail with an email tracker

Gmail doesn't have native open tracking built in — you need a Chrome extension or an email tracker for Gmail with CRM integration.

Using NetHunt CRM:

1. Install the NetHunt CRM Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store
2. Open Gmail and compose a new email
3. Look for the tracking icons in the compose toolbar — an eye icon (open tracking) and a finger icon (link tracking)
4. Enable the ones you want before hitting send tracked emails
5. After sending, find the email in your Sent folder — a green icon shows whether and when it was opened
6. Click the icon to see full stats: ALL (aggregated), OPENS (open history with timestamps and device), CLICKS (which links were clicked and when)

If you have multiple emails in a thread, you can click into any individual message to see its stats separately.

Using Mailtrack:

1. Install the Mailtrack Chrome extension — available on the Google Workspace Marketplace
2. Compose an email in Gmail as usual — tracking is enabled by default
3. Double checkmarks appear in your Sent folder when the email is opened (similar to WhatsApp read receipts)
4. Click the checkmarks to see open count and timestamps

How to track emails in Outlook

Outlook has a built-in read receipt feature, but for pixel-based open and click tracking you need a third-party add-in. Most email tracking software supports Gmail and Outlook — though Gmail-native tools typically require a separate Outlook add-in.

Using HubSpot Sales:

1. Install the HubSpot Sales Outlook add-in from the Microsoft AppSource — compatible with Microsoft Office 365 and Outlook desktop
2. Open a new email compose window — a HubSpot sidebar appears
3. Check the "Track" checkbox before sending
4. View open and click notifications in the HubSpot activity feed or directly in Outlook via the sidebar

Native read receipts in Outlook:

1. Compose a new email
2. Go to Options in the compose window
3. Check "Request a Read Receipt"
4. Send — Outlook will notify you if the recipient's client sends a confirmation back (not guaranteed)

How to track emails in Apple Mail

Apple Mail has no native tracking and no plugin ecosystem comparable to Chrome. Your best options are:

Using Mailbutler (paid add-on for Apple Mail):

1. Install Mailbutler from the Mac App Store
2. Enable tracking in Mailbutler settings
3. Compose emails in Apple Mail as normal — Mailbutler adds tracking automatically
4. View open stats in the Mailbutler sidebar

For Gmail users on Mac who prefer Apple Mail: the tracking tools you use depend on your email provider, not your mail client. A Chrome extension like Mailtrack only works in Gmail via the browser — not Apple Mail. Switch to Gmail in the browser or use a tool with an SMTP-level integration.

How to trace an incoming email (sender & origin)

If you received a suspicious email and want to verify where it actually came from — or you're debugging a deliverability issue — you need to read the raw email headers. Here's how to do it in each client.

Gmail: use Show original

1. Open the email in Gmail
2. Click the three vertical dots (⋮) next to the Reply button in the top right of the message
3. Select Show original
4. A new tab opens showing the full raw headers — look for the Received: lines, which show each server the email passed through, starting from the most recent at the top
5. The bottom-most Received: line is closest to the original sending server
6. Copy the full header block and paste it into a tool like MXToolbox Email Header Analyzer for a readable breakdown

Outlook: View message source

1. Open the email in Outlook
2. Click the three dots on the toolbar (or go to File > Properties on desktop)
3. Select View message source (or check the Internet Headers box in Properties)
4. The raw header data appears — look for Received: and X-Originating-IP: fields
5. Paste into an online header analyzer for full breakdown

Apple Mail: All Headers

1. Open the email in Apple Mail
2. Go to the top menu: View > Message > All Headers
3. The full header block appears above the message body
4. Look for Received: lines and X-Originating-IP: to trace the sending path

What to look for in headers:

• Received: lines — the routing path of the email, server by server. Read from bottom to top for chronological order.
• X-Originating-IP: — the IP address of the original sending server or client
• SPF / DKIM / DMARC results — authentication checks that tell you whether the sender domain is legitimate. Failing these checks is a common reason email lands in the spam folder
• Return-Path: — where bounces go, often reveals the true sending domain

Email tracking limitations every tracker user should know

Email tracking isn't perfect. Before you build your entire follow-up strategy around open data, understand where it breaks down.

Apple Mail Privacy Protection

Since iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, Apple Mail pre-loads email content — including tracking pixels — when a message arrives, regardless of whether the user actually opens it. This means every email sent to an Apple Mail user appears as "opened" immediately after delivery, even if it was never read.

For sales teams with a lot of Apple-heavy contacts, this inflates open rates and makes open data unreliable as a timing signal. Link click tracking is unaffected — clicks still require genuine user action.

Image blocking

Some email clients and corporate environments block images by default. Since tracking pixels are images, the email open isn't recorded until the contact manually chooses to load images. Contacts who never enable image loading will never show as having opened your email — even if they read every word.

Proxy opens

Security tools, spam filters, and email scanners sometimes open emails automatically to check for malicious content or attachments. These proxy opens show up as genuine opens even though no human read the email. Most good email tracking software tries to filter these out, but not all do it well. If a contact's email was opened within seconds of delivery, it may be a security scanner rather than the contact.

The practical takeaway: treat open data as a directional signal, not a precise measurement. Link clicks are more reliable. CRM-level context — knowing a prospect's history, pipeline stage, and engagement pattern — makes individual data points more meaningful.

Best email tracking software in 2026

The market for email tracking tools splits into two categories: standalone trackers that bolt onto Gmail and do one job well, and CRM-integrated email tracking software that connects tracking data to your sales pipeline. Which one you need depends on what you're trying to do with the data.

Here's an honest look at the six best options available right now.

NetHunt CRM — email tracker for Gmail

NetHunt CRM is a Gmail-native CRM that includes email tracking as part of a broader sales platform. Unlike standalone trackers, NetHunt connects every open and click to a contact record, deal, or sales pipeline stage — so tracking data becomes actionable business context rather than an isolated notification. It's the email tracker for Gmail built for sales teams who need more than a checkmark.

Key features:

• Open tracking with timestamps, open count, and device type (desktop/mobile)
• Link tracking with per-link click data
• Tracking stats visible directly in Gmail Sent folder without switching tabs
• CRM-level fields: Last email open count, Total email open count, Links click count — auto-populated per contact record
• Custom tracking domain support for better email deliverability
• Domain exclusions for click tracking
• Tracking works for scheduled emails (Send Later)
• Workflow automation triggered by email opens and clicks

Pros:

• Tracking data tied to CRM records, not just individual emails
• Full pipeline context alongside engagement signals
• Team-level visibility — managers see engagement across the whole team via NetHunt reports
• Automation triggers based on open/click events — works across multi-channel sequences
• Works inside Gmail without switching tabs or tools

Cons:

• More setup than a simple Chrome extension
• Overkill if you only need basic read receipts
• Requires Chrome extension for Gmail tracking; no native Outlook support

Pricing:

• Basic: $24/user/month (billed annually)
• Business: $48/user/month (billed annually)
• 14-day free trial available — check current pricing

Mailtrack by Mailsuite — free email tracker for Gmail

Mailtrack (now part of Mailsuite) is the original Gmail email tracker, launched in 2013. It's the simplest way to add read receipts to Gmail — double checkmarks appear when your email is opened, similar to WhatsApp. With 14M+ users, it's the most widely used standalone mail tracker for Gmail and is available on the Google Workspace Marketplace.

Mailtrack offers free and unlimited email tracking on its base plan — you can track as many emails as you need, with real-time open notifications and full tracking history on Premium.

Key features:

• Open tracking with double checkmark indicators in Gmail — know when your emails are opened instantly
• Open count and timestamps
• Device type detection
• Real-time push notifications (desktop and mobile)
• Sidebar showing tracking status across all sent emails
• Gmail app support on Android and iOS
• Daily email reports (Premium)
• Invisible tracker option — no signature added (Premium)
• Full tracking history (Premium)

Pros:

• Easiest setup of any tool on this list — installed in under a minute from the Google Workspace Marketplace
• Free and unlimited open tracking on the free plan
• Familiar UX (checkmarks feel natural)
• Strong mobile support

Cons:

• No CRM integration
• No link tracking on free plan
• Free plan adds a visible Mailtrack signature to every email
• Limited analytics — no team reporting or campaign-level data

Pricing:

• Free: unlimited open tracking, visible signature
• Premium: $2.99/month (billed annually) — invisible tracker, full tracking history, daily reports

HubSpot Sales Hub — email tracking software with free plan

HubSpot's email tracking comes bundled with its free CRM and Sales Hub. It works with both Gmail and Outlook, and unlike most standalone trackers, it gives you full contact context alongside tracking notifications — company info, communication history, open deals. NetHunt takes a similar approach but adds data enrichment to automatically populate contact records. HubSpot is a strong choice if you need email tracking software that works across Gmail and Outlook without choosing sides.

Key features:

• Open and click tracking for Gmail and Outlook
• Real-time desktop notifications
• Tracking activity visible in CRM contact timeline
• Email sequences with tracking built in
• Templates with tracking
• Contact profile sidebar in compose window
• Track attachments — see when a recipient opens a file you sent

Pros:

• Free plan includes tracking — no paid plan required to start
• Works with Gmail and Outlook
• Deep CRM integration
• Strong reporting at campaign and contact level

Cons:

• Free plan has HubSpot branding on emails
• Full sales features require paid Sales Hub ($100+/user/month)
• Can feel heavy for teams that only need tracking
• Less Gmail-native than NetHunt or Streak

Pricing:

• Free CRM: includes basic email tracking
• Sales Hub Starter: $20/user/month
• Sales Hub Professional: $100/user/month

Streak — Gmail email tracker with pipeline

Streak is a Gmail-native CRM that lives entirely inside your inbox. Email tracking is one of its core email power tools, alongside mail merge and snippets. It's a strong option for teams who want CRM functionality without leaving Gmail, and its free plan covers basic tracking for individual users.

Key features:

• Open tracking with timestamps and geographic location of opens
• View count per email
• Activity log of opens visible in sidebar
• Filter emails by view status (opened, not opened, awaiting reply)
• Pipeline integration — link tracked emails to deals
• Mail merge with tracking

Pros:

• Deeply Gmail-native
• Pipeline view helps prioritize follow-ups
• Good free tier for individuals
• Location data on opens

Cons:

• Limited analytics compared to GMass or HubSpot
• Mobile experience weaker than desktop
• Team features require paid plan
• Less automation depth than NetHunt

Pricing:

• Free: basic tracking, limited pipeline
• Pro: $49/user/month
• Pro+: $69/user/month

GMass — email tracker for campaigns

GMass is a Gmail-based email outreach tool built primarily for sending mass campaigns with tracking. It's not a CRM, but its analytics are among the most detailed of any email tracking software on this list — particularly for teams running high-volume cold email or newsletter campaigns. If you're looking for a CRM with email marketing built in, NetHunt handles campaigns and 1:1 tracking in one place.

Key features:

• Open, click, reply, bounce, and unsubscribe tracking
• Campaign-level analytics dashboard
• Unique opens vs total opens
• Apple Mail Privacy Protection filtering (separates likely false opens from real ones)
• Automatic follow-up sequences based on open/click behavior
• Google Sheets integration for mail merge
• Segmented campaigns based on engagement data
• Track unlimited emails across campaigns

Pros:

• Best analytics depth of any Gmail-native tool
• Apple MPP false open filtering
• Excellent for campaign-level reporting
• Powerful automation based on engagement — improves response rates significantly

Cons:

• Not a CRM — no contact records or pipeline
• Less suited for 1:1 sales emails
• Can feel complex for simple use cases

Pricing:

• Standard: $25/month
• Premium: $35/month
• Enterprise: custom

Hunter MailTracker — free email tracking for Gmail

Hunter's MailTracker is the simplest tool on this list — a free email tracker for Gmail that adds open and device tracking with zero configuration. Hunter promises it will always remain free, never adds a logo or branding to your emails, and lets you track unlimited emails without a paid plan. It's free and unlimited — the cleanest free email option if you just need the basics.

Key features:

• Open tracking with timestamps — know when your email was opened
• Device detection (desktop/mobile)
• Open count per email
• Real-time notifications
• No branding added to emails
• Track as many emails as you like at no cost

Pros:

• Completely free, no paid plan required
• No signature or branding added
• Dead simple setup
• Clean, unobtrusive UI

Cons:

• No link/click tracking
• No CRM integration
• No team features or support team
• No analytics beyond per-email open data
• Gmail only

Pricing:

• Free forever

How we evaluated email tracking tools

Every tool in this list was assessed against eight criteria chosen to reflect what actually matters to sales teams and marketers evaluating email tracking software. Each criterion is scored on a 0–10 scale and weighted equally.

The eight criteria:

• Gmail/Outlook integration — how natively the tool works inside your email client, without requiring tab-switching or separate dashboards.
• Open & click tracking accuracy — the depth and reliability of tracking data: timestamps, open counts, device detection, per-link click data.
• Real-time notifications — how quickly you're alerted when an email is opened, and how actionable those alerts are.
• CRM & pipeline integration — whether tracking data connects to contact records, deal stages, and sales workflows — or exists in isolation.
• Ease of setup — how many steps it takes to go from zero to sending your first tracked email.
• Reporting & analytics — the depth of aggregate data available: campaign-level, team-level, trend analysis.
• Pricing & free tier — what's available without paying, and whether the paid tiers represent fair value for the features offered.
• Team & multi-user support — whether the tool scales to a team, with shared visibility, role management, and team-level reporting.

Email tracking software comparison table

How to choose the right email tracker or email tracking software

The right tool depends less on feature lists and more on how you actually use email day to day.

You just need a free email tracker → Hunter or Mailtrack

If you send individual emails and want a simple signal — opened or not — without any setup complexity or cost, Hunter MailTracker is the cleanest choice. It's free, adds no branding, and lets you track unlimited emails at no cost. Mailtrack is the alternative if you want a full tracking history and a more detailed view, with a very affordable paid upgrade.

You use Gmail for sales and need more than a tracker → NetHunt CRM

If email is your primary sales channel and you're working with leads, deals, and follow-up sequences, a standalone tracker isn't enough. You need tracking data connected to your pipeline. NetHunt's Gmail CRM gives you open and click data inside your Gmail inbox, tied to contact records and deal stages, with automation that can trigger follow-up emails based on engagement — all without leaving your inbox.

You send bulk campaigns and need full tracking software → GMass

If you're sending hundreds or thousands of emails and need campaign-level analytics — who opened, who clicked, who bounced, who unsubscribed — GMass is the strongest Gmail-native option. Its Apple MPP filtering and segmentation based on engagement behavior make it the best choice for high-volume outreach.

You want a free plan with CRM and email tracking → HubSpot Sales

If you're starting from scratch, need CRM + tracking + email templates, work across Gmail and Outlook, and want to stay on a free plan as long as possible, HubSpot's free tier is hard to beat. Just be aware that the free plan has limitations and scaling up gets expensive quickly.

You want Gmail-native email tracking without switching tools → Streak

If you want pipeline management and tracking inside Gmail, don't need deep automation, and are working as a solo rep or small team, Streak's free plan covers the basics well. It's a lighter tracking system than NetHunt but also simpler to get running. For a detailed side-by-side, see our NetHunt vs Streak comparison.

FAQ: email tracking, read receipts, and trackers

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