I kept wondering whether my emails had actually been read, so I built BlueTicks. It brings WhatsApp-style ticks to Gmail: one tick when your email is sent, two blue ticks the moment it is opened. The receipts arrive in real time, right in your Sent list, so a glance tells you where things stand.

Hover a tick to see when, and how many times, an email was opened. A companion side panel sits next to your inbox and surfaces the messages still waiting on a read. Multi-account support keeps the ticks in sync across every Gmail account you use, and your own opens never count as reads.

The part I care about most is what it does not do. Setup is one click: no new inbox, no configuration, no OAuth and no access to your Google account. Your recipients see nothing, no banner, no notification, no tracking signature added to your messages. Email content is never stored on the servers, subject lines and recipients stay in your browser, and no IP addresses are kept. Built on the GDPR principle of data minimisation. Available for Chrome and Firefox.