Email tracking pixels: who knows you opened it?
Most marketing emails, and some personal ones, report when and where you opened them. You can turn most of it off.
A tracking pixel is a tiny invisible image in an email. When your mail app loads it, the sender’s server learns that you opened the message, when, roughly where from your IP address, and sometimes on what device. Newsletters use it. Sales tools use it to see if you read their proposal. Scammers use it to confirm your address is live.
How to reduce it:
- Apple Mail: turn on Protect Mail Activity in Mail settings. It loads images through a proxy.
- Gmail already loads images through its own proxy, which hides your IP but still reveals the open.
- Outlook and others: set images to not load automatically for external senders.
- Unsubscribe from newsletters you don’t read. Less mail, less tracking.
If you send tracked emails yourself, mention it in your privacy notice. In some places, including the EU, it needs consent.