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Response Tracking Overview

Some emails aren't chores to file — they're conversations that need to move. Response tracking watches your threads and tells you whose turn it is, so nothing important goes quiet without you noticing.

It tracks conversations, not opens

Response tracking is about the state of a thread — whether it's waiting on you, waiting on them, or done. It does not track whether someone opened or read your email. There are no read receipts or open/click pixels.

The states a thread can be in​

Every tracked conversation carries one state at a time. As people reply, MailPrism moves the thread between these states for you.

StateWhat it means
Needs ActionThe thread is waiting on you — a reply or an action.
Awaiting ReplyYou've responded; now you're waiting on someone else.
PendingIn progress — neither side is clearly blocked right now.
ResolvedHandled and closed out.
SnoozedSet aside until later, so it's out of your way for now.

You can match on a thread's state in your automations — see Conditions reference.

The Replies view​

Open Replies in the sidebar to work through everything that's being tracked. It's a split view — the list of tracked threads on the left, the selected conversation on the right — just like your inbox.

A row of tabs across the top, each with a live count, filters the list by state — plus an Untracked queue, which isn't a state (see below):

All Needs Action Awaiting Reply Pending Resolved Untracked

Untracked lists emails MailPrism chose not to auto-track, so nothing disappears silently. For each one you can Track & trust sender (track it, and always track future email from that sender) or Dismiss it.

The Needs Action count is the one that follows you around — it's the badge you'll see elsewhere in the app, because it's the work that's genuinely waiting on you.

From a tracked thread you can do the same things you'd do in the inbox — reply, archive, label, nudge — plus Resolve it once the conversation is done. If you've connected more than one Gmail account, the account filter and search work here too.

→ More on the split view and per-email actions: Inbox overview

How emails enter tracking​

A conversation can start being tracked in several ways:

Path inWhat triggers it
A ruleA rule you built runs a tracking action (for example, Track response needed).
ManuallyYou mark a thread yourself from the inbox or Replies view.
Label importYou sync a Gmail label you already use into MailPrism's tracking.
Basic modeTracking is automatic — incoming mail and your replies are picked up for you.
AIWhen AI features are on, MailPrism reads a thread and decides whether it's worth tracking.

How automatic this is depends on your tracking mode — see Tracking modes.

When AI is used

The AI parts of tracking — reading a thread to judge its state, or filtering out newsletters and notifications — only run while AI is on and your plan includes it. To judge a thread, MailPrism sends each message's sender, recipients, date, and text, plus your own address. With AI off, tracking still works using your rules, manual actions, and email direction.

Resolving and auto-resolution​

A thread leaves your active lists when it's resolved. You can resolve a conversation by hand at any time — but MailPrism can also do it for you:

  • When you reply, the thread can move on automatically (it's no longer waiting on you).
  • After a quiet stretch, an old conversation can resolve itself so stale items don't pile up.

These auto-resolution rules, plus what happens when a tracked email is deleted, are controlled in your tracking settings — see Tracking modes.