How to avoid email tracking on Gmail and Outlook?

Today, it is not uncommon to receive several dozenadvertising emails every month, even every week for the unlucky among us. Among all of these emails, some don’t just try to sell their products, they also verify that you opened their email, then look at when you read it and where you ended up. found at that time. They use for this marketing software specialized systems that generally integrate a tracking pixel hidden in a picture or a link. When e-mail is open, the lines of code contained in the pixel transmit information about you to the company.

At present, progress has been made to limit this practice. Google, for example, makes images pass through its own servers proxy, which hides your location from certain applications screening. Extensions of Navigator, like Ugly Mail and PixelBlock, were also developed for this purpose. But there are also very simple operations to perform in order to prevent the automatic loading of the images contained in your e-mails. While this method does not prevent all tracking devices from being engaged, it will still shut down many.

Futura tells you in this article how to proceed for the two most popular messaging services, Gmail and Outlook.

Disable automatic loading of images in Gmail on PC

First, open a tab in your Navigator usual, then connect to your Gmail account. On your main messaging page, click on the gear icon at the top right of the screen. A contextual menu appears, then go to “Settings”.

On the General tab, scroll down to locate the “Images” section. Then select the option “Ask for confirmation before displaying external images”.

At the bottom of the page, click on the “Save changes” button to validate the change.

Disable automatic loading of images in Gmail on Android

Launch the app Gmail on your smartphone, then tap the “hamburger” menu icon (the three horizontal lines) in the upper left corner of the screen.

In the menu that appears, scroll down until you locate the “Settings” gear icon. Tap on it.

Select your Gmail account in the settings.

Again, scroll down to the “Pictures” section and then tap on it.

A small window appears, then select the option “Ask for confirmation before displaying external images”.

If you are using the Gmail app to manage multiple email accounts, then repeat the process for each of them.

Disable automatic loading of images in Microsoft Mail

The “Mail” application of Microsoft supports Outlook.com, but also the most popular mailboxes (Gmail, Yahoo, Office 365, Exchange, etc.).
Start Mail by clicking on the envelope icon in the taskbar or on your desktop. Then click on the gear icon located in the lower left area of ​​the interface. The parameters are then displayed in the right part of the screen, select “Reading pane”.

Scroll down to the bottom of the options and ensure that the option status “Automatically download images and formats from style external, except for S / MIME mail “and” Automatically download external style images and formats for S / MIME mail “are disabled.

If you are using the “Mail” application to manage multiple mail accounts, then be sure to check the “Apply to all accounts” box.

Disable automatic downloading of pictures in Outlook on Android

Launch the Outlook application on your smartphone Android, then click on the hamburger icon located at the top left corner of the interface.

A menu is displayed, then press the gear icon at the bottom left.

Then click on the account of your choice to change its settings. Note that you will have to repeat the operation for each account.

Finally, move the slider in front of “Block external images” to the right.

Mozilla Thunderbird: an alternative solution

The email client Mozilla Thunderbird, in addition to being free and offering a very large number of customization and configuration, is set by default to block external images. You will decide for each of the emails you receive whether you want to display them or not. You also have the option of setting the software to show only images from senders who are in your whitelist, that is, those you trust.