Refuting some of the other answers, it is not the case that the German missions are unwilling to provide you with information or simply refuse to help you out of spite.Assuming that we are talking about national visa applications here there is no way to check the progress as on Amazon or Zomato, example. The reason for this being is the complexity of the process and the amount of players involved. Your application will first be assessed by the consular workers in your home country for integrity, completeness and correctness. Following suit to this, the consular director for national visa (present in embassies and consulate generals) will approve the first step. Your dossier is hence forwarded to the city in Germany for which you are applying to get a national visa. The city’s foreigners office will review all documents thoroughly and might involve the national police as well as international databases. Finally, the decision will be shared with the mission that accepted your dossier in the first place and you will receive the famous email saying that you can collect your passport.I hope this helped in understanding the process better. By all means I would advocate for a more transparent process that allows applicants to know what exactly is going on with their dossier but due to the complexity of the decision-making I am not expecting anything soon in this direction.More insights might be found with educaro.