Best Free Email Tracker for Gmail in 2026 (Honest Comparison)

If you've searched for a free Gmail email tracker, you've probably landed on the same shortlist everyone else gets: Mailtrack, Streak, HubSpot, Yesware, and a few Chrome extensions that haven't been updated in years.

Most comparison posts stop at "these tools exist." This one compares them on the things that matter when you track email professionally: what Google permissions they ask for, what the free plan really includes, whether they brand your email, and how honest their open counts are.

One disclosure up front: we make Maildriply, so weigh our verdict accordingly. Where we can, we stick to things you can check yourself.

Short answer: for free, unbranded open and click tracking from your own Gmail, Maildriply (ours) and Streak's free plan both work, and HubSpot's free tracking does too if you're willing to set up a HubSpot account. Mailtrack is free for opens but adds a promotional signature and limits free link tracking to 10 emails. Yesware's free plan only tracks emails for 24 hours after you send them. Each vendor section links to that vendor's own pricing page.

How we compared them

Every claim below comes from one of three places:

1. The Google consent screen. It lists exactly which Gmail permissions a tool requests before you click Allow.
2. Each vendor's public pricing page for what the free plan includes. Plans change, so check before you commit.
3. What a tool says about bot and Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens. If a vendor doesn't explain how it filters them, we say so rather than guess.

Our rubric:

1. Minimal OAuth scope. Does it read your inbox, or just send?
2. Honest open counts. Apple Mail Privacy Protection, Gmail's security scan and crawlers all inflate open rates if they aren't handled. How Gmail open tracking works explains where those false opens come from.
3. A real free plan. No forced signature, no trial dressed up as a free tier.
4. Tracking as the product, not a feature you reach through a CRM.

1. Maildriply

Free plan: free during early access, no credit card, no branding in your emails

Maildriply requests only gmail.send, the narrowest OAuth scope that lets it send email. That scope cannot read your inbox. Why we only request gmail.send covers what that costs us and why we chose it.

Every email leaves your own Gmail account through the Gmail API, with no SMTP relay in the middle. Emails you send from Gmail with the Chrome extension are delivered by Gmail itself.

Open tracking: Gmail's security scan is never counted. Fetches from bots, prefetchers and Apple Mail Privacy Protection that arrive within seconds of sending are dropped, and repeat opens from one recipient within about a minute count once. An Apple MPP fetch that arrives later still looks like a real open, and no tracker can fully remove those. Our Apple MPP guide covers what that does to your numbers.

Click tracking: included free. Links are rewritten to signed redirects, and the destination is fixed when you send, so no one can reuse a tracking link to redirect a recipient elsewhere.

Free tier limits: no monthly send cap during early access. Dashboard sends follow a daily limit that rises while a new Gmail connection warms up. Templates, AI drafts (50 a month) and the Chrome extension are all included.

Verdict: Our pick if you want tracking without inbox access or branding. It's Gmail-only, and it doesn't yet do per-recipient mail merge.

2. Mailtrack (now Mailsuite)

Free plan: unlimited open tracking (first open only), link-click tracking on 10 emails, and a promotional signature that only paid plans remove

Mailtrack is the most widely installed Gmail tracker, and it now sits inside the broader Mailsuite product. The free plan covers read receipts, but its history shows only the first open, and Mailsuite's pricing page lists promotional signature removal and unlimited link tracking as paid features.

Verdict: Fine for casual personal use. The forced signature makes it a poor fit for sales, recruiting or other professional outreach. Our Mailtrack alternative page compares the two in detail.

3. Streak

Free plan: email and link tracking, snippets and 50 mail-merge sends a day; Pro is $49/user/month billed annually (Streak pricing)

Streak is a CRM built inside Gmail, and email tracking is one feature among many. To manage your drafts and email it asks for broad Gmail access, far more than a send-only scope. That's a real privacy tradeoff if all you want is to know who opened your email.

Verdict: Good if you want a Gmail-native CRM and are comfortable with the permissions. More than you need if tracking is the goal. See Streak vs Maildriply.

4. HubSpot Sales (Gmail integration)

Free plan: open and click tracking with desktop notifications; it requires a HubSpot account (HubSpot email tracking)

HubSpot's Gmail integration works, but it's the tracking feature of Sales Hub rather than a standalone tracker. You sign up for HubSpot, install its Gmail extension, and tracking data syncs to HubSpot's CRM. Sequences, team reports and deeper analytics are on paid tiers, which climb as you add seats.

Verdict: Right for teams already on HubSpot. Overkill if you just want to know who opened your email. See HubSpot Sales vs Maildriply.

5. Yesware

Free plan: open and attachment tracking only for emails sent in the last 24 hours, and 10 campaign recipients a month; Pro is $15/seat/month billed annually (Yesware pricing)

Yesware is a sales engagement add-on for Gmail and Outlook, with templates, campaigns and Salesforce logging. The free plan is a taste of the product rather than something you'd run outreach on: tracking stops a day after you send.

Verdict: Worth a look if your team lives in Salesforce. Hard to recommend as a free tracker. See Yesware vs Maildriply.

Quick comparison table

"Check plan" means we couldn't confirm it from the vendor's public pages. Plans change often, so treat this table as a starting point and check each vendor's pricing page and Google consent screen before you install.

The difference that matters most: OAuth scope

Every tracker on this list can tell you when your email was opened. The meaningful difference is what permission it needs to do it.

Tools that request gmail.readonly, gmail.modify or full https://mail.google.com/ access can read every email in your inbox. A tool that only holds gmail.send can't. Google's scope reference describes gmail.send as "Send email on your behalf", while gmail.modify lets an app "read, compose, and send emails from your Gmail account".

If that matters to you, it narrows the list quickly.

Bottom line

If you want a free Gmail email tracker that:

• doesn't add a signature to your emails
• doesn't read your inbox
• sends through your own Gmail account
• handles bot and Apple MPP opens so your open rate means something

...we think that's Maildriply. It's free during early access with no credit card. For the full setup, read our guide to email tracking in Gmail.

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