What Apple changed
Mail Privacy Protection is a setting in Apple's Mail app and in Mail on iCloud.com.
Apple says it prevents senders from seeing if you have opened the email message they sent you, and that it hides your IP address.
It downloads an email's remote content in the background by default, whether or not the person engages with the email.
The protection does not extend to links or to attachments such as PDF files.
The person can turn it off. Apple says a sender may otherwise learn when and how many times an email was opened, whether it was forwarded, the IP address and other data. Hide IP Address is a separate setting that keeps masking the IP address when Protect Mail Activity is off.
What it does to an open
An open is counted when an image in the email loads. When Mail loads the image in the background, a sender can count an open for an email that was not read.
Maqetin adds an open pixel to the emails it sends and treats opens as a weak signal. Clicks are the number to use.
Maqetin flags opens and clicks that look like a scanner and leaves them out of its counts.
Do not read an open rate as the share of people who read the email.
What to count instead
| Count | What it shows | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| The outcome | The event the email was for, such as order.placed, kyc.completed or plan.upgraded. | Your app has to send the event. |
| Clicks | A person followed a link. Maqetin flags scanner clicks and leaves them out of click counts. | A click is a message record. It is not a profile event. |
| Lift | The gap between people who got the email and a holdout group. See email holdout testing. | Needs a random holdout. Built-in holdouts are planned. |
| Opens | A rough sign that mail is arriving. | An open cannot show that an email worked. |
Name the divisor of every rate
A rate means little until it says what it was divided by: emails sent, emails delivered or people reached. Write the divisor beside every rate you report.
Sources
- Apple Support: Use Mail Privacy Protection on iPhone, checked 27 Oct 2026
- Apple: Mail Privacy Protection and privacy, checked 27 Oct 2026