---
title: "Block remote images in email"
description: "Stop remote pictures in email from telling a sender when you opened it and from which IP address. One switch, plus show-once and trusted senders."
url: "https://openemail.uk/features/external-images"
---

[Privacy & ownership](https://openemail.uk/features.md#trust)

# Remote image control You decide what gets fetched.

Every remote picture is a request to the sender's server, carrying your IP address and the moment you opened the mail. They load by default, and one switch holds them until you ask.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[All features](https://openemail.uk/features.md)

In short

## What are remote images in email?

Most pictures in newsletters and receipts are not in the message. They sit on the sender's server and are fetched as you open it, telling that server when you read it and from which IP address.

How it works

## One switch, set where it matters

Turn off “Load pictures in mail automatically” under Privacy in your workspace settings. One domain or one address can answer differently.

## Show them once, or trust the sender

Held pictures come with a bar. Show Images loads them for that message only, and Trust Sender always loads them from that address.

## Pictures sent inside the message still show

Inline attachments and embedded pictures arrived with the message, so they render with the switch off.

## What counts as remote

Held while the switch is off, removed either way, or always shown.

<img src> a hosted picture, held url() a CSS background, held @import imported styles, always removed @font-face remote fonts, always removed cid: inline attachment, shown data: embedded picture, shown

What you get

## In the product today

Shared, not personal

It belongs to the workspace, a domain or an address, never to one person.

Printing too

A printed message fetches nothing unless the switch or the trusted list allows it.

No open reported

With pictures held, opening a message reports nothing, even to OpenEmail's own open tracking.

Good practice

## Getting the most out of it

1. 01
   
   Decide on day one
   
   It ships on, so turn it off early if senders should not learn when you read.
2. 02
   
   Trust people, not newsletters
   
   Trust colleagues whose pictures carry the content, and show newsletter pictures one message at a time.
3. 03
   
   Read before you show
   
   Showing pictures tells the sender you opened it, so decide from the text first.

Where it stands

## Good to know

Questions

## Asked often

Keep going

## Works well with

Tracking pixels stripped

The invisible image that tells a sender you opened their mail is gone before you see the message.

Block a sender or a domain

One address, or everything from a domain, stopped before it reaches you.

See when mail you sent was opened

Whether a message you sent has been opened, when, how many times and which of its links were followed. On unless you turn it off, and plain about the readings it cannot get.

Start

## Your domain, your mail.

Point a domain at OpenEmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

[Open mail](https://openemail.uk/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://openemail.uk/signup.md)[Read the reference](https://openemail.uk/docs/knowledge/trust/external-images.md)