How to Prevent Emails From Tracking You in Apple Mail

[Mizouse]

i've had this turned on for years mainly due to fear of some malicious image being sent.

its kind of funny getting emails saying "we havent seen any activity from you in a while, so we will unsubscribe your email from our marketing list"

 

[iamdmann]

That is a useful link, but what he talks about is a subscription. Apple should just include this type of blocking in Mail by default.

Yep…I misremembered and didn’t reread daring fireball before posting. Mailtrackerblocker is what i had in mind. Jonblatho was spot on.

 

[Okta]

Thats an interesting find, thanks for sharing!

 

[CTHarrryH]

Tired it on the screen there is a button to download remote content - so if you need to you can implement this and load remote - not sure what you can trust or not.

 

[JetLaw]

Not to be overly pedantic, but there is no “code within the pixel” as is stated in the article. Rather, the mail client sees the image file (which can be as small as a single pixel) and triggers and download of the image asset from the server; it is the downloading of this image by the client that provides the data as to whether (and potentially where) the email was accessed.

 

[npmacuser5]

Good option for us. The pictures, ads are OK. The tracking part should be illegal, period.

 

[Rigby]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

This relies on a block list (which may be outdated). It also doesn't prevent the actual sender of the mail from tracking you with real images (rather than spy pixels). Turning remote images off is safer.

 

[lyleberman]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

Thank you for this! I didn't realize this existed!

 

[Rigby]

You can enable that in iOS too. Word of warning: Emails from Amazon don't appear correctly with remote content blocked.

Tip: You can configure your Amazon account so that they send you plain text emails. Goto Account/Communication and content/Communication Preferences/Email Preferences/General Settings.

 

[goobot]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

Interesting, I wonder if there is a iOS jailbreak tweak like that

 

[sir1963nz]

This doesn't work. There doesn't seem to be an option in Apple Mail anymore to manage plug-ins.

Weird because am running it in Big Sur with zero problems.
You can manage plug-ins via preferences -> General -> Manage Plug-inns (at the very bottom of the dialog box).

The plug in is highly non intrusive, it has a "dot" with an X in it if there is nothing to block, and shows up blue if there is.

 

[sir1963nz]

I stopped using Apple Mail. Sometimes emails that get through normally end up in junk. That's fine, I just tap on it and move it to inbox. The issue I have is that it never shows junk when using an Outlook.com account. Exchange junk? No problem. Gmail? No problem. Just Outlook.com accounts. This is specific to iOS 14 as I never had this issue in previous iOS versions.

Now I just use the actual Outlook app and I'm not a fan of it. It's very isolated in a way. When the junk mail issue is reported to Apple, nothing comes of it. Such is life.

I have a wonderful se of email rules which helps a LOT. I have a number of sets of these rules covering .org, .com , country codes, etc.

Do I know people in Romaina (.ro), no. Russia (.ru), no. Brazil (.br), no....

And yes the ">" is important.

 

[posguy99]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

And how often does this application's blocklist get updated?

 

[posguy99]

How is that better than making sure a single toggle is off?

The "better" method also pushes a Homebrew install, so, not better.

 

[delnerdo]

Does the web-based icloud mail reader have a similar setting?

 

[ignatius345]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

Yup. Came here to post exactly this.

Not loading remote images isn't much of a solution. If you get an HTML email from someone your choices are 1) look at it all broken or 2) load the images and phone home. The plugin above fixes that so you can view your email normally and also cut off that tracking.

 

[bluecoast]

Loading images in web mail by proxy must surely be next on Apple’s list after the privacy features of 14.5.

 

[planteater]

I enabled this last year when an Audi dealership insisted that they replied to me but really hadn't. The sales rep sent a screenshot of every interaction I had with their messages and it creeped me out.

This is also how marketing firms track their reach, so even more reason to enable this.

Screenshot? How would that be possible?

 

[InGen]

There’s an even better way for macOS that blocks trackers while still allowing you to view images.

And all you have to do is allow some 3rd party plugin maker to read and scan all your emails! What a joke. Dislike and bad advice for those who are privacy conscious.

The best way is to follow the advice in the above article and if you are hyper concerned only open links in a secure sandbox app like Tor.

Do not download the plug-in listed unless you want 3rd parties reading the contents of your emails.

 

[BradMacPro]

Gruber linked to a utility for this a while back on daringfireball.net. I’ve been using it in apple mail and it’s been completely unobtrusive.

Apple Mail and Hidden Tracking Images

Apple should offer defenses against email tracking just as robust as Safari’s defenses against web tracking.

daringfireball.net

edit: jonblatho linked above to what I thought I learned about via daring fireball.

Hey is $99 a year so I'll try the free MailTrackerBlocker first.

 

[BradMacPro]

It's already blocked a tracker from Facebook and amazon.com emails.

 

[jonblatho]

And all you have to do is allow some 3rd party plugin maker to read and scan all your emails! What a joke. Dislike and bad advice for those who are privacy conscious.

The best way is to follow the advice in the above article and if you are hyper concerned only open links in a secure sandbox app like Tor.

Do not download the plug-in listed unless you want 3rd parties reading the contents of your emails.

Goodness, it's open-source. The beautiful thing about that is that if you don’t trust it outright, dig in and look at the source yourself to see when and where it makes uploads. It does what it says on the tin and doesn’t phone home.

 

[Rigby]

Does the web-based icloud mail reader have a similar setting?

Yes. Click the gear icon in the lower left corner of the email web app, Preferences->General.

 

[Westside guy]

Good advice, although not really a new feature in Mail. I've been taking advantage of that setting for years.

 

[jchap]

WTF? Tracking images are creepy, but let's not pretend they're magical, because they're not.

But you make it sound like the pixel image itself is actively transmitting information - it's not - there's no "code within the pixel", it's just an image.

Lovely explanation of what’s really going on. The MacRumors author this time failed to do their homework, unfortunately. As you and others have written, pixels cannot do anything—they’re just images.