A large majority of the images in the emails you receive are used to track you. Here’s how to prevent it.
You might not know it, but by the time you open an email in your inbox, there’s a good chance that its sender will be made aware and receive an acknowledgment, not only telling them that you have opened his message, but also the time at which you read it. How? ‘Or’ What ? Quite simply because of the images contained in the message.
This technique is nothing new. Called Pixel tracking or spy pixel, it is very often set up to track you to your mailbox. It is based on the insertion of the link to an image or an invisible pixel, stored on a remote server, directly in the body of the message. When opening the message, your messaging application will then download these images from the servers where they are stored to display them in the body of the message.
Without your being informed, the sender of the message receives a notification allowing him to know when the message was opened by the recipient and possibly your geographical position. This valuable information is then used to better target future mailings and to feed statistics.
Fortunately, it is possible to prevent this by disabling the automatic downloading of images in the messages you receive. In addition to strengthening your protection against tracking, you will save your mobile data if you collect your mail in 4G.
Block emails from downloading on Gmail
Whether you are using the web version or the iOS / Android app of Gmail, you can easily turn off automatic image downloads.
To do this, go to the Settings of the box then, in the General tab, access the Images menu, and choose to Ask for confirmation before displaying external images.
When you open a message, no image contained in the body of the email will be downloaded.
You will need to click on the View images button, just below the subject line of the email, to download the images contained in the shipment.
Block images from downloading in Mail on iPhone
If you’re using the native iOS mail client, open Settings, and go to the Mail menu. Then deactivate the Upload images option so that they are no longer automatically downloaded when opening a message.
You can, if you wish, decide to display them by pressing the Load all images option displayed at the top of the message.
Then click on Trust Center, then click on Trust Center Settings.
Make sure that the line Do not download images automatically in HTML e-mail messages is checked.
If you are using Outlook.com webmail, you usually do not need to do anything. On its support page, Microsoft explains that its platform automatically secures the download of external images that may be contained in an email, using an image proxy.