Pictures and trackers
Lots of emails carry a tiny, invisible picture. When it loads, the sender learns that you opened the email, when, and often roughly where you were. Rookery stops that.
What Rookery does to every email
- Tracking pixels are removed. As an email arrives, Rookery finds tracking pictures and takes them out. At the top of the email, a line says how many it found, like "Rookery blocked 2 trackers that would tell the sender you opened this."
- Other pictures wait. Pictures that would load from the sender's servers are hidden. Each one shows as a small Picture hidden box, at its own size, so you can see something is there.
- Pictures sent inside the email still show. Images attached to the email itself don't contact anyone, so they appear as normal.
Show the pictures
- Open the email. A line says how many pictures are hidden.
- Click Show them.
The pictures load for this email only. The next email starts hidden again.
Showing pictures loads them from the sender. That means the sender's server can tell the email was opened. Trackers stay removed either way, but if you'd rather they learn nothing, leave the pictures hidden.
What counts as a tracker
A picture is removed as a tracker if it's 2 pixels or smaller, if it's hidden on purpose, or if it comes from an address known for open tracking, like the ones mailing-list and sales-email tools use.
Good to know
- Rookery never adds tracking pixels or open tracking to the mail you send.
- Links in email open without telling the site where you came from.
- Not yet: fetching pictures for you so showing them reveals nothing, naming which company tried to track you, removing tracking codes from links, and always showing pictures from a sender you trust.