A recent question in r/Emailmarketing asked a familiar creator-business dilemma: when should you stop emailing people who have not opened in 30 or 90 days—and is a final “open this or we’ll remove you” email the right move? The thread had no substantive community replies, but the underlying instinct is right: inactive subscribers deserve a deliberate process, not indefinite sending or a blunt purge.

The important adjustment is this: do not treat opens as a perfect measure of interest. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection prevents senders from reliably seeing whether some recipients opened an email, which means open-based segments can contain people who are reading your newsletter. (support.apple.com) A subscriber who has not opened in 30 days may simply have received four to nine emails, depending on their signup date and sending schedule—and may still be engaged in ways your pixel cannot see.

Use 30 days as an alert, not a deletion rule

For a business mailing twice per week, 30 days without an open is best used as an early-warning segment. It is a prompt to change the experience: reduce frequency, test a more specific content angle, or ask subscribers what they want. It is not strong enough evidence to remove someone automatically.

A better initial definition is based on a combination of time and message volume:

  • Watch list: no measured engagement after 6–10 campaigns.
  • Re-engagement eligible: no opens or clicks after roughly 90–180 days, while excluding people who subscribed recently, purchased recently, visited your site, or replied to an email.
  • Sunset eligible: no meaningful engagement after a short re-engagement sequence.

MailerLite itself defaults its inactive-cleanup view to subscribers inactive for six months who have received more than 10 emails. Its guidance also suggests saving this audience as a segment before unsubscribing so you can send a targeted win-back campaign. (mailerlite.com) That is a sensible starting point for a twice-weekly newsletter, though a high-intent sales list or daily publication may need a different threshold.

Segment beyond “openers” and “non-openers”

Separating openers from non-openers is useful, but it should be only one layer of segmentation. The better question is: what evidence says this person still wants this relationship?

Create a priority audience using signals such as recent clicks, purchases, site activity, survey responses, webinar attendance, replies, and sign-up recency. Then create a lower-engagement segment for subscribers with no clicks and no other known activity over your chosen window. Clicks are not flawless either—security systems can occasionally pre-check links—but they are generally a more actionable signal than opens alone. (mailerlite.com)

This approach prevents a common mistake: removing a quiet but valuable customer because they read in Apple Mail, or because they consume your ideas without clicking every issue.

Send a real win-back sequence, not a threat

Yes, send a final campaign—but frame it as a choice, not an ultimatum. The goal is to either restore relevance or secure a clean opt-out.

A simple three-step sequence works well:

  1. Reintroduce the value. Remind readers what they signed up for and share one genuinely useful resource, best issue, or relevant offer.
  2. Offer preferences. Let them choose a lighter cadence, a topic-specific track, or occasional product updates rather than every newsletter.
  3. Close the loop. Say you will pause regular emails unless they click a clear “keep me subscribed” button. Anyone who clicks stays; non-responders move to an unsubscribed or suppressed segment.

MailerLite offers a win-back automation designed around this logic: identify inactive subscribers, send a re-engagement message, preserve those who engage, and automatically unsubscribe those who do not. (mailerlite.com)

Avoid gimmicky subject lines that manufacture urgency. A direct subject such as “Still want the weekly growth notes?” or “Choose what you want to receive from us” sets the right expectation and filters for genuine interest.

List hygiene is now a deliverability practice

Removing disengaged contacts is not just about improving a vanity open rate. Gmail requires all senders to meet baseline authentication and spam-rate requirements, and senders at bulk volume must also provide easy unsubscribe options. Google says spam rates in Postmaster Tools should stay below 0.3%. (support.google.com) Yahoo similarly tells senders to keep spam complaints below 0.3%, honor the frequency subscribers expected, and support easy unsubscribing. (senders.yahooinc.com)

For U.S. commercial email, a visible opt-out is also a legal requirement, and unsubscribe requests must be honored within 10 business days. (consumer.ftc.gov)

The practical answer to the Reddit poster is therefore: do not delete at 30 days; start observing. Do not rely on opens alone; prioritize clicks and customer behavior. And do not keep mailing inactive people forever; use a respectful, automated sunset sequence after a longer, volume-aware window. A smaller list that expects and values your emails is more likely to convert—and less likely to damage the inbox placement of everyone else.