Can eM Client be configured to disable / block pixel tracking images, specifically?
If not, is it on the roadmap?
Can eM Client be configured to disable / block pixel tracking images, specifically?
If not, is it on the roadmap?
No, eMC does no do that specifically.
And AFAIK no email client does.
As far as email tracking goes, the main fix is to make sure eMC is set to ask before it loads external images.
Or, if you want to go full nuclear, you can disable HTML in your emails altogether. But then there is something of a security/privacy argument to be made for plain-text emails as well.
Yeah it would be nice if there was a simple filter to not load invisible images or images that are below, say 5x5 pixels. It probably wonât catch all tracking images, but itâd be better than nothing. Turning off all images isnât really a solution because it renders many HTML emails (like newsletters that I subscribe to) unreadable.
I guess a more inelegant solution (but probably easier to code) would be to give us the option to load individual images one at a time â say, by Shift-Click on an unloaded image.
I read recently that an average email nowadays contains more than a dozen tiny images. I just went to check my professional email signature: 14 tiny images for my signature alone! That would be a lot of Shift-clicking!
You can disable âunsafe contentâ in the privacy settings but whitelist the senders of your newsletters (with their tracking pixels of course).
Yes apple mail has a tracker: MailTrackerBlocker for Mail on macOS
A tracking pixel is not an image. It is a link to the Internet. To block links, choose the appropriate setting here:
Then remove everyone from the whitelist.
It is not possible to distinguish one link from another.
FWIW, Firefox has an independently available addon, Ugly Email, which, in GMail, displays an 'eyeâcon next to all messages with tracking pixels. Imperfect yet very illuminating.
It would be ideal if all tracking pixels could be simply dis-allowed. Later in this thread @Gary shows how to use the Privacy settings to block all âunsafeâ content unless they are whitelisted. Helpful; but not really a solution for me as it would really be handy to know, on a day-to-day basis all messages which have tracking pixels whether or not they are whitelisted. That way, upon review, I could decide whether or not whitelisted senders deserve their whitelisting.
Exactly. I want to 1) Block ONLY the tracking pixels / elements, not other graphic content (sometimes the graphics are useful and/or essential to be able to read or understand the contents of the email) and 2) See who is tracking me.
It canât be THAT hard to at least get 90% of the way there by blocking images that are 1x1 pixels or set to be invisible or using whatever basic tactics these things rely on⌠I donât expect perfection.
That would be useful except that a tracking pixel is not an image, or at least it is not an image when the email client receives the message. It is just a link within the message body to external content on the internet, and would appear no different to a 1600x800 pixel image link.
If a tracking pixel isnât an image, then why do so many guides say that the way to block tracking pixels is to set your email client to not download any images by default? It seems fairly clear that blocking images blocks tracking pixels, thus they must be images, no?
Exactly. The tracking pixel is not an image in the email. It is a link to an image online. If you block the client from downloading content from the Internet, no image is ever displayed.
That is the principle on which eM Clientâs privacy option works; it disables access to any link in the message.
If you take your post that was forwarded to my email address. Your account avatar is an image, but it is not embedded in the email. There is only a link to the online image:
<img src=3D"https://forum.emclient.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/lette=
r/a/a5b964/45.png" title=3D"armandhammer" width=3D"45" height=3D"45">
This one gives a width and height, but that is not required, so if a link does not include the size of tracking image, how do you distinguish it from a regular image?
Good point. I wonder if itâs common for tracking pixels to not have height and width defined? I would think that they would define it as 1x1 or something super small, so that thereâs a guarantee that it wonât be displayed⌠but who knows. I guess any image could be used for tracking when it comes down to it⌠even something that looks innocuous like a company logo or whatever.
It is not required to have the width and height specified in the HTML link, so that may be a loop-hole to get them through.
Exactly. Anything that is a link in the message that accesses or downloads something from the Internet can be tracked.