Prevent People From Seeing That You’ve Opened Their Emails
When you send an important email, you won’t know when the recipient will open it. You have to sit in front of your computer like a drug addict, waiting for their response. However, some email senders do not need to wait for a response to know that a message has been received. In fact, they can track exactly when you open their email without getting hung up on you. Lucky for you, a simple tweak in your email client allows you to beat them at their own game.
How Email Tracking Works
There are no built-in read receipts in email, and I’m fine with that. But some, especially email marketers, trick the system by adding their own one-way read receipts, called “pixel trackers”, to their messages . The name is apt: the pixel is embedded in the email in question, perhaps an image or a link. Then, when you open that email, the pixel can tell the original sender about it.
This chatty behavior is the basis of how email marketers measure their success. Marketers use pixel trackers to know how many users on their mailing list actually open their emails, as well as what links are inside. This is effective, but doubtful. On the other hand, some senders use more explicit measures to track who opens their emails, such as with a service like Mailtrack . Mailtrack attaches a padding to the end of every email, telling the recipient that the sender saw them open it. Still a bit sneaky, but hey, I applaud transparency.
The best way to avoid these trackers is to avoid obvious marketing emails. But you don’t have to live in fear of your mailbox. Most likely, your email client has a setting that blocks these trackers from working. We will look at three of the most popular email clients and how to disable trackers in each of them:
Disable Pixel Trackers in Gmail
On different platforms, you need the “Ask before displaying external images” option. On desktop, you’ll find this under Settings > See all settings > General , and then under Pictures. On iOS, tap the menu icon, then choose Settings > Email Preferences > Pictures . On Android, tap the menu icon, then select Settings > [your email account] > Pictures . This setting disables dynamic email, so you’ll lose the ability to do things like reply to a Google Docs comment without leaving the message.
Disable pixel trackers in Outlook
In Outlook for Windows, select File > Options > Trust Center . In the “Microsoft Outlook Trust Center ” section, select “Trust Center Settings”, then uncheck “Don’t automatically download images in HTML email messages or RSS items”. In Outlook for Mac, open Preferences, then set the Download external images option to Automatic to Only in messages from my contacts or Ask before downloading.
On the iOS or Android apps, open Settings, select your email address under Mail Accounts , and turn on Block external images.
Block Pixel Tracker in Apple Mail
If you’re using the Mail app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you’ll have the option to block trackers as part of the larger Mail Privacy Shield feature, which also hides your IP address. A win-win!
You can make sure this setting is enabled on iOS by going to Settings > Mail > Privacy Shield , and on a Mac, by going to the Privacy tab in the app’s preferences.
If your email client isn’t here, give it the name google along with something like “block external images”. If your app has this feature, you’ll most likely see instructions for enabling it here.
[ Fringe ]