These days the emails companies send us are more interactive than ever, where they load them up with photos like the company’s logo, product images, promotions, and so on, all to entice us to click on them. However, did you know that some emails might also contain hidden images in which it can then be used to track your activity the moment your email?
If you’d like to prevent that from happening, you can actually turn off image loading on Gmail. This will help prevent instances like what we mentioned above from happening. If you’d like to do that, then check out the steps below to see how to block images (or allow them) from loading in your Gmail emails.
How To Block Images In Gmail On The Web
By default, Gmail for the web will block images from loading. However, if you’d like to double check to ensure that it has been enabled, or maybe you actually want these images to be loaded automatically, then here’s how you can go about it.
- Go to Gmail
- Click the gear icon to the top right of the screen and select Settings
- Under the General tab, scroll down and look for Images
- Select “Ask before displaying external images” if it hasn’t been selected already. If you want images to load automatically, then select “Always display external images”.
- Scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes” and you’re done!
How To Block Images In Gmail On Mobile
If you’re on mobile and would like to block images, here’s how you can access the settings to do so.
- Launch the Gmail app
- Tap the hamburger icon to the top left corner of the app
- Scroll down until you see Settings
- Select the email account you want to block images on
- Tap on Images
- Select “Ask before displaying external images” if you want images to be blocked automatically, or select “Always display external images” if you’d like them to be loaded by default.
Note that even if you have chosen to block images from loading by default on Gmail, you will always have the option to load them in individual emails. You will see a prompt at the top of the email asking if you want to load images. You will also be given the option to trust the sender and always load images from that particular email address, like from those that you trust like friends and family.
We should also mention that since 2014, Google has actually served images in emails through its proxy servers, which means that it already helps prevent tracking to a certain degree. However, by blocking images from loading, it will help enhance your privacy in the event that there are some tracking applications that can get around Google’s proxy servers.