Should you remove subscribers who never open your emails?
Yes, periodic pruning is healthy: sleepers drag down your deliverability, and on most tools you pay per contact for them. Send a win-back email first ("want to stay?"); whoever stays silent can go after six to twelve months of inactivity.
Deleting subscribers feels wrong, but a big list full of sleepers is an expensive illusion. Mailbox providers watch how recipients respond to your mail; a large share of ignored emails tells Gmail your traffic is unwanted, which hurts delivery for everyone, including your loyal readers. On top of that, with per-contact pricing (Mailchimp, Klaviyo) you pay monthly for addresses that never do anything.
The clean routine: define sleepers (say, no open or click in six months, allowing for unreliable open tracking), send them a short win-back campaign of one or two emails with the simple question whether they want to stay, and remove whoever does not respond. Every serious tool can maintain that segment automatically.
Think of it as pruning: the list shrinks, but every send performs better, your statistics become honest again, and you only pay for real readers. List quality beats list size, every single time.