The Ultimate Guide To Stop Your Emails From Being Tracked

All of those obnoxious advertising emails that crowd your inbox aren’t just pushing a product. They’re additionally monitoring whether or not you’ve opened the email, whilst you opened it, and where you were at the time by way of the usage of software programs like MailChimp to embed tracking software programs into the message.

How does it work? An unmarried monitoring pixel is embedded into the email, normally (but no longer always) hidden inside an image or a link. When the e-mail is opened, the code in the pixel sends the information returned to the company’s server.

There had been some attempts to limit the amount of data that can be transmitted this way. As an instance, for the reason that 2014, Google has served all images thru its very own proxy servers, which could hide your vicinity from at the least a few monitoring programs. And extensions including ugly email and PixelBlock had been developed to block trackers on Chrome and Firefox.

There's additionally a simple basic step you could take to avoid trackers: forestall your email from robotically loading photos considering images are wherein the general public of those pixels conceal. You won’t be capable of keep away from all of the trackers that may disguise in your email this manner, however, you will prevent lots of them.

Here is the way to do it in the main desktop and cell email apps:

DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING IN GMAIL:

• Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner to access your settings, and click on “See all settings.”
• In the “General” tab (the first one), scroll down to “Images.”
• Select “Ask before displaying external images.”
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Save Changes.”

DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING IN MICROSOFT OUTLOOK (OFFICE 365):

• Click on “File” > “Options.”
• In the “Outlook Options” window, select “Trust Center.”
• Click on the “Trust Center Settings” button.
• Check the boxes labeled “Don’t download pictures automatically in standard HTML messages or RSS items” and “Don’t download pictures in encrypted or signed HTML email messages.” You can make a number of exceptions to the first item if you want by checking the boxes underneath it.

DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING IN APPLE MAIL:

• Select “Mail” > “Preferences.”
• Click on the “Viewing” tab.
• Uncheck “Load remote content in messages.”

DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING IN ANDROID GMAIL:

• Tap on the three lines in the upper left corner.
• Scroll down to and select “Settings.”
• Tap on the email account that you want to work with.
• Scroll down to and select “Images.”
• Tap on “Ask before displaying external images.”

DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING IN IOS GMAIL:

• Open Gmail for iOS, tap the hamburger menu in the upper left, and scroll down to settings.
• Tap the account you want to personalize, and tap into “Images.”
• Switch from “Always display external images” to “Ask before displaying external images.”

Note that for those wishing to do this on Gmail’s cell patron, it seems it will only work for non-public accounts and no longer employer ones controlled through G Suite, for now.

 DISABLE IMAGE AUTOLOADING ON IOS MAIL:

• Tap on “Settings” > “Mail.”
• Find the “Messages” section and toggle off “Load Remote Images.”

Another option is to use an email consumer inclusive of Thunderbird, which blocks remote pix through default; the application allows you to download embedded content material on a personal foundation or allow pictures from contacts that you trust now not to send hidden code in their pics.