Most Popular Email Clients in May 2022

What are the most popular email clients of May 2022? Here’s a look at the top email clients, plus the shifts that took place between April through May 2022.

Top email clients

Before we get started, we always like to note two things:

As of fall 2021, the category “Apple” includes Apple iPhone (iOS Mail), Apple Mail (macOS Mail), Apple iPad (iPadOS Mail), and Apple Mail Privacy Protection (Apple privacy-impacted opens). Learn why in this blog post.
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) hides device data so we aren’t able to differentiate between iOS, iPadOS, or macOS. Additionally, the new OSes don’t differentiate between MPP and non-MPP in the user agent data it passes.

With that, the top 3 most popular email clients for May 2022 are Apple, Gmail, and Outlook. Here’s the top 10:

Apple: 58.0%
Gmail: 28.1%
Outlook: 4.2%
Yahoo Mail: 3.1%
Google Android: 1.9%
Outlook.com: 1.0%
Samsung Mail: 0.3%
Windows Live Mail: 0.08%
Web.de: 0.06%
GMX: 0.05%

Since we checked last month, Apple’s market share increased slightly from 57.2% to 58%. It’s the most popular email client in May, followed by Gmail at 28.1% and Outlook at 4.2%.

Here’s a breakdown of the Apple subcategories:

Apple Mail Privacy Protection: 52.2%
Apple iPhone (iOS Mail): 2.9%
Apple Mail (macOS Mail): 2.6%
Apple iPad (iPadOS Mail): 0.3%

Apple Mail Privacy Protection has increased two percentage points, from 50.2% to 52.2%. With this increase in Apple Mail Privacy Protection, all other Apple clients decreased.

Want more data and trends? Check out our email client market share site, which includes Apple’s MPP data, pre and post-MPP launch.

Opens by environment

The most popular open environments for email are:

Apple Mail Privacy Protection: 51.7%
Webmail: 35.2%
Desktop: 6.8%
Mobile: 5.3%
Other: 1%

Apple Mail Privacy Protection increased two percent, from April to May (49.7% to 51.7%, respectively). Aside from MPP, webmail is the second most popular environment at 35.2%. Desktop is third, followed by mobile.

Note: We’ve been able to track MPP since October 2021 with Litmus Email Analytics.

Most popular mobile opens

The most popular mobile email clients are Apple iPhone (iOS Mail), Google Android, and Samsung Mail.

Apple iPhone (iOS Mail): 53.4%
Google Android: 34.7%
Samsung Mail: 5.9%

Apple iPhone (iOS Mail) continues to take the lead as the most popular mobile environment at 53.4%. Google Android is the second most popular at 34.7%, increasing from 30.3% in April to 34.7% in May.

Samsung Mail is new to the top three, a spot previously occupied by Apple iPad (iPadOS Mail). It accounts for 5.9% of mobile’s opens, ranking just 0.1% higher than iPadOS Mail. (Though we didn’t list this in the chart above, Apple iPad’s share for May 2022 is 5.8%.) This decrease could be attributed to MPP.

Most popular desktop opens

The top three most popular desktop clients are Outlook, Apple Mail (macOS Mail), and Windows Live Mail—just like last month.

Outlook: 61.1%
Apple Mail (macOS Mail): 37.6%
Windows Live Mail: 1.1%

Outlook is the top desktop client and continues to grow. In April 2022, it was at 58.1%; in May 2022 it was at 61.1%. Apple Mail (macOS Mail)—in second—continues to decline, from 40.5% to 37.6%, a decrease that we’ve seen happen slowly over the past few months. This could also be due to MPP.

Light Mode vs. Dark Mode opens

Before we dive in, we always like to note that our Dark Mode data is based only on the Apple Mail app for iOS 13, macOS 13, iOS 14, macOS 14, iPadOS 14, iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and Apple Mail privacy-impacted devices.

Light Mode: 74.4%
Dark Mode: 25.6%

Light Mode is the most popular reading environment, with 74.4% of the overall share. Similar to last month, it’s increased about one percentage point, from 73.7% to 74.4%). Dark Mode accounts for the remaining 25.6%.

What about your audience?

The above email client market share data points provide an at-a-glance look at the industry at large. Although these insights are powerful, the key lies within your own audience. We recommend you use these data points as a reference point, in addition to your audience insights.

Where did we get all this data? Our email client market share stats are pulled from over a billion email opens, anonymously collected, and aggregated with Litmus Email Analytics from May 1-31, 2022. It highlights global trends across all industries and verticals. Some email clients may be over- or under-represented, particularly with mobile and webmail. This is due to image blocking or image caching, most notably with Gmail. Still curious? Learn how we get this data.

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Kimberly Huang

Kimberly Huang is a Content Marketing Manager at Litmus

Email Client Market Share in May 2022