# Inactive subscribers: spotting and handling them

Inactive subscribers are people on your list who stopped opening and clicking. How to measure inactivity fairly, why it matters, and how Mimeo finds them.

**Definition:** Inactive subscribers are people still on your list who have not opened or clicked anything for a stretch you choose, such as 90 or 180 days, so your email no longer reaches anyone who reads it.

## How it works

Inactivity is measured from engagement: the last time a person opened or clicked. Two details make the measure fair.

- **Clicks count more than opens.** An open is recorded when a tracking image loads, and Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads it for everyone using Apple Mail, read or not. Opens are a trend line. A click is a real signal.
- **The clock needs a fair start.** Someone who joined last week, or who was just imported from another tool, hasn't had the chance to open anything yet. Count from the later of their last engagement and the day you started emailing them.

Once you know who's quiet, the usual move is a last-chance email asking whether they still want your mail, then unsubscribing the people who stay silent.

## Why it matters

- **Gmail recommends it.** Google's sender guidelines suggest periodically checking that people want to stay subscribed, and unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
- **Quiet addresses skew your numbers.** Open and click rates measured against a list full of non-readers hide how your real readers respond.
- **Mailing them all at once is a risk.** A sudden burst to people who stopped reading is how a sender's reputation gets damaged.

## How Mimeo handles it

Every person in Mimeo has an [engagement score](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/people#the-engagement-score) from 0 to 100, built from how recently they opened or clicked, how many recent emails they engaged with, and whether they click. New subscribers start in the middle, and a nightly pass lets silent people cool off. A [segment](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/segments) finds the quiet ones directly: "opened any email in the last 90 days", set to doesn't match.

To act on them, a flow can start on the [inactivity trigger](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/flows#inactivity): a set number of days without a human open or click. Its clock counts from the latest of their last open or click, the day they subscribed, the first email Mimeo sent them and their last resubscribe, so an imported list doesn't look inactive on day one. People enter a daily batch at a time, and you can preview who qualifies before going live. See [re-engagement](https://mimeohq.com/glossary/re-engagement-and-win-back) for what the flow does next, and [Mimeo terms](https://mimeohq.com/docs/glossary#working-in-mimeo) for pruning in Mimeo's own words.

## Sources

1. [Email sender guidelines](https://support.google.com/a/answer/81126), checked 2026-11-09
2. [People](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/people), checked 2026-11-09
3. [Flows](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/flows), checked 2026-11-10
4. [Segments](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/segments), checked 2026-11-09
5. [Reporting](https://mimeohq.com/docs/usage/reporting), checked 2026-11-09

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This is the Markdown copy of https://mimeohq.com/glossary/inactive-subscribers.