21 email & spam volume statistics that matter: 2026 edition
The world now sends nearly 400 billion emails a day - and almost half of them are spam. These 21 sourced statistics map the scale of email in 2026: how much is sent, who sends it, how much is noise, and where it gets read.
Email is the largest communication channel on the planet, and it is still growing. Every day the world sends and receives hundreds of billions of messages - a number so large it is easier to picture per second than per day. Behind that volume sits a quieter story: a huge share of it is spam, phishing, and malicious attachments that mailbox providers have to sort out before your legitimate mail can land.
Volume is the backdrop every deliverability decision plays out against. When nearly half of all traffic is spam, filters default to suspicion. When 60% of opens happen on a phone, rendering and timing matter. And when the average person holds several accounts across a handful of providers, reaching the right inbox is harder than the raw user count suggests.
Here are 21 sourced email and spam volume statistics for 2026 - covering daily send volume and growth, the global email user base, the spam share and its origins, the mobile share of opens, and how accounts stack up against users - with what each one means for the mail you send.
Key takeaways
- The world sent about 392.5 billion emails a day in 2026, on track for ~424.2 billion by 2028.
- There are roughly 4.55 billion email users worldwide - 56% of the world population.
- Spam was 44.99% of all global email traffic in 2025 - nearly one message in two.
- Russia was the single largest source of spam in 2025, originating 32.50% of all spam.
- Roughly 60% of all emails are opened on mobile.
- There are over 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide - far more than there are users.
Daily email volume and growth
1. The world sent and received about 361.6 billion emails per day in 2024
DemandSage's aggregation puts 2024 global email traffic at 361.6 billion emails per day, up 4.3% year over year. Email is not a legacy channel in decline - it is a still-expanding one, adding tens of billions of daily messages with each passing year.
2. Global daily email volume reached about 376.4 billion in 2025
By 2025, daily volume climbed to roughly 376.4 billion emails a day. Each year the baseline your mail competes against gets larger, which means more total noise and more sends fighting for the same finite attention in every inbox.
3. Daily email volume is projected at about 392.5 billion in 2026
For 2026, daily volume is projected to reach around 392.5 billion emails a day. That is nearly 400 billion messages moving through mailbox providers every 24 hours - the scale at which even small percentage differences in placement translate into billions of emails won or lost.
4. Email traffic is forecast to hit about 424.2 billion a day by 2028
Looking ahead, email traffic is forecast to reach roughly 424.2 billion emails a day by 2028 - about 4.9 million every second - at a 4.2% compound annual growth rate. The channel's ceiling is not in sight; deliverability infrastructure has to scale with it.
See where your email lands across providers →
The global email user base
5. There are about 4.55 billion email users worldwide in 2025
As of 2025 there are roughly 4.55 billion email users worldwide - about 56% of the world population and 82% of all internet users. Email is effectively universal among people who are online at all, which is why it remains the one identity almost every service asks for.
6. Global email users are projected to reach about 4.97 billion by 2028
The user base is projected to grow to around 4.97 billion by 2028, approaching five billion people. The addressable audience for email keeps expanding - but reaching it depends entirely on landing in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
7. Radicati projects users from over 4.4 billion in 2024 to over 4.9 billion by 2028
The Radicati Group's Email Statistics Report projects the worldwide user base rising from over 4.4 billion in 2024 to over 4.9 billion by 2028. Two independent forecasts converging near five billion underline how steady and predictable email's growth curve is.
8. A mid-2026 roundup puts global email users at about 4.7 billion
A mid-2026 industry roundup estimates around 4.7 billion email users worldwide, consistent with the trajectory between the 2025 and 2028 figures. Whichever source you use, the picture is the same: billions of active inboxes, and more added every year.
The spam share you're filtered against
9. Spam was 44.99% of all global email traffic in 2025
Kaspersky's telemetry shows spam accounted for 44.99% of all global email traffic in 2025 - nearly one in every two messages. This is the noise your legitimate mail has to be sorted out of, and the reason mailbox providers default to suspicion rather than trust.
10. Kaspersky blocked over 144.7 million malicious email attachments in 2025
Across 2025, Kaspersky blocked 144,722,674 malicious email attachments - a 15% increase over the prior year. Rising attachment-borne threats are exactly why receivers scrutinize every message, and why authenticated, reputable senders get the benefit of the doubt that unknown ones do not.
11. Kaspersky thwarted more than 554 million phishing-link attempts in 2025
The same year, Kaspersky's systems thwarted more than 554 million attempts to follow phishing links. Phishing at this scale is what trains both filters and recipients to treat unfamiliar mail as a threat first - raising the bar every legitimate sender has to clear.
Where spam comes from
12. Russia was the single largest source of spam in 2025
By origin, Russia led the world, originating 32.50% of all spam in 2025 - roughly a third of global spam from a single country. Geographic concentration like this is one of the signals reputation systems weigh when deciding how much to trust a given sending source.
13. China (14%) and Russia (11%) led email-antivirus detections in 2025
By where malicious mail was caught, China (14%) and Russia (11%) led email-antivirus detections, followed by Mexico and Spain (8% each) and Turkey (5%). Threats are widely distributed across regions, which is why receivers assess sender behavior rather than geography alone.
14. Asia-Pacific led all regions with 30% of email-antivirus detections in 2025
At the regional level, Asia-Pacific accounted for 30% of email-antivirus detections, ahead of Europe at 21%. The heaviest concentrations of malicious mail track the world's largest sending populations - and shape how aggressively filters treat traffic from them.
15. Within Russia's Runet, 43.27% of all email was spam in 2025
Zooming into a single national segment, 43.27% of all email on Russia's Runet was spam in 2025 - close to the global average. The spam problem is not confined to a few outliers; it is a baseline condition of email everywhere, which is why deliverability is a universal discipline.
The mobile share of opens
16. Litmus splits opens into mobile 41.6%, webmail 40.6%, desktop 16.2%
Litmus's open-environment data breaks reads down into mobile at 41.6%, webmail at 40.6%, and desktop at 16.2%. Mobile and webmail now dominate together - a message that only renders well on a wide desktop screen is failing the majority of the people who open it.
17. Roughly 60% of all emails are opened on mobile
Broader estimates put around 60% of all email opens on mobile, within a 55-65% range held since 2020. The phone is where most email is read, so subject lines, preview text, and single-column layouts have to earn attention on a small screen first.
18. Apple (64.66%) and Gmail (24.11%) hold nearly 90% of the email-client market
As of May 2026, Apple (64.66%) and Gmail (24.11%) together hold nearly 90% of the email-client market. Two ecosystems decide where the vast majority of your mail lands - which is why meeting Apple's and Google's authentication and reputation expectations is effectively meeting the whole market's.
Accounts, and business vs. consumer mail
19. There are over 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide
There are more than 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide - far more than there are users. People keep separate inboxes for work, personal life, shopping, and signups, so reaching a person is not the same as reaching the account where they actually pay attention.
20. The average professional maintains about 3.2 email accounts in 2026
The gap between accounts and users is explained by usage: the average professional maintains about 3.2 email accounts in 2026. Your message may technically reach someone while landing in the inbox they check least - making engagement, not just delivery, the real measure of reach.
21. The average office worker receives 121 business emails and sends about 40 per day
Inside the workday, the average office worker receives about 121 business emails and sends about 40 per day. That is the crowded, high-volume environment your mail arrives into - and the reason a message has only a narrow window to prove it belongs in the Primary inbox rather than being ignored or filtered.
What this means: reading the volume
Volume raises the bar, it doesn't lower your odds. Nearly 400 billion emails a day and a base heading toward five billion users mean email is a bigger opportunity than ever - but it also means more total noise. At this scale, small differences in inbox placement are the difference between reaching millions of people and reaching none of them.
You are always sorted out of the spam pile first. With spam at 44.99% of traffic, 144.7 million malicious attachments blocked, and 554 million phishing attempts stopped in a single year, mailbox providers treat unknown mail as guilty until proven trustworthy. Your job is to send the unmistakable signals - authentication, consistency, engagement - that separate you from that half of the stream.
Design for the phone, because that is where email is read. Around 60% of opens happen on mobile, and Apple and Gmail control nearly 90% of clients. Optimizing for those two ecosystems on a small screen is not one option among many - it is optimizing for the actual conditions in which almost all of your mail is seen.
Reaching a person is not the same as reaching their attention. With over 7.9 billion accounts, 3.2 per professional, and 121 business emails landing in the average worker's inbox every day, a delivered message can still go unseen. Volume statistics are a reminder that deliverability is about landing in the inbox that matters, at the moment it will actually be read.
Know your own numbers before you scale into the noise. The global figures set the backdrop, but the only volume that decides your outcome is your own placement rate against these filters. Before you send into a channel this crowded, test your real inbox placement so you know exactly where your mail lands - not where you assume it does.