"Machine Opens" refers to email opens affected by Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), a feature introduced with iOS 15.
This setting can be enabled starting with Apple IOS 15, IpadOS 15, watchOS 8, MacOS 12 Monterey. If this setting is activated to protect the user's privacy, Apple will generate machine opens on behalf of that user once the email is received in the inbox. Once the machine opens it, it doesn't mean the user opened the email or not. For example, when a user opens an email using the Mail app on an Apple device, this is logged as a Machine Open. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the user has actually read the email.
Although MPP-triggered opens may occur before a user actually views the email, Insider can still track whether a real human open occurred. When the user loads the email content on their device, Insider records a separate Human Open, regardless of any previous machine-triggered events.
Apple uses Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) to protect user privacy by automatically opening emails. Therefore, even if the user hasn’t viewed the email, Apple’s systems register it as opened, classifying it as a "Machine Open."
Example Scenarios
To clarify how different types of opens are counted, below are common scenarios:
Scenario | What happens | How Insider records it | How it is counted |
|---|---|---|---|
Machine open first, then human open |
| First event → machine_open: true, human_open: false Second event → human_open: true | Total opens: 2 Unique machine open: 1 Unique human open: 1 |
Only machine open (Apple MPP) |
| Event → machine_open: true, human_open: false, apple_mpp: true | Total opens: 1 Unique machine open: 1 Unique human open: 0 |
Only human open |
| Event → human_open: true, machine_open: false | Total opens: 1 Unique machine open: 0 Unique human open: 1 |
Multiple machine opens + One human open |
| Several events with machine_open: true One event with human_open: true | Total opens: multiple Unique machine open: 1 (grouped) Unique human open: 1 |
Key differences
All Apple machine opens are machine opens while not all machine opens are Apple machine opens. Below, you can see the differences between machine opens and Apple machine opens.
Aspect | Machine Opens | Apple Machine Opens (MPP) |
|---|---|---|
Scope | The general category of bot opens | Specific to Apple Mail users with MPP |
Source | Various bots (e.g., inbox providers, firewalls, etc.) | Apple Mail’s privacy servers |
Purpose | Security (scanning links, spam detection | User privacy (masking email behaviors) |
Identification | Difficult to segment or identify | Easily recognized by patterns linked to Apple devices and MPP |
Impact on Metrics | Extra/duplicate opens but unpredictable patterns | Predictable inflation of open rate |
Insider can identify the Apple Machine Opens. This capability is reflected on the Analytics page with a dedicated graph. Additionally, the "open" event in Insider includes specific parameters as "human open" and "machine open" to provide further insights into the details of the opens.
All Apple Machine Opens are a subset of Machine Opens. However, Machine Opens may also come from other non-Apple sources (such as security scanners or inbox providers), which cannot always be precisely identified. Insider distinguishes Apple MPP opens with high accuracy using recognized traffic patterns.
How can you reduce machine-opened emails?
Reducing or fully eliminating machine-opened emails is challenging as many factors lie outside your control. However, you can take several steps to minimize their occurrence:
Enhance engagement: You can focus on delivering relevant and personalized content that encourages users to open and interact with your emails, such as clicking the emails or making purchases. Providing valuable and engaging content increases the chances of recipients actively reading your messages.
Avoid spam triggers: You can use email best practices, such as crafting clear and authentic subject lines and content, to avoid triggering spam filters. This helps ensure your emails aren’t automatically marked as spam, which reduces machine opens.
Clean your email list regularly: You can regularly remove inactive or unengaged subscribers from your email list. If you target only those who are genuinely interested, you can boost engagement and decrease the number of machine open.
Leverage machine open data to refine your segment: On the recipients page, under the open event section, you can use the machine open parameter to exclude these individuals from your segments. This way, you can effectively remove recipients who previously triggered machine opens, leading to a more refined and accurate segment.
The segment above targets recipients who did not generate a machine-triggered open event within the last 30 days. The "Email Open" event must have occurred exactly once, and the "Machine Open" parameter must be marked as “False.” By applying this, you will be able to exclude individuals who have already had machine-triggered opens. You can easily adjust your segment details based on your campaign's use case.
To avoid confusion, here is how Insider counts opens:
Unique human opens: Counted once per user
Unique machine opens: Counted once regardless of repeated machine scans
Total opens: Includes all opens (machine + human)