Email tracking can track whether you’ve opened an email or clicked on a link.

Are there ways to prevent them from tracking you? Yes!

If you use Gmail, you can use one of the many plugins available, one of which is Ugly Email:

Ugly Email is a Gmail plug-in. When a tracker is detected, it shows the icon of an eyeball in the subject line to alert you that a tracker is hidden inside the email.

Rest assured that all detected trackers are blocked and you can freely open your emails.

If, you are a Mac Mail app user, just click “Mail” in the menu bar at the top-left, then “Preferences.” When the Preferences window opens, click the “Viewing” tab. About halfway down the window, there is a checkbox that says “Load remote content in messages.” Make sure that is unchecked. What this will do is prevent the pixel trackers and other images from loading. Instead, for all of your email that have images, you will see a button at the top that says “Load remote content” in the top right. Images (including pixel trackers) will only be loaded when you click that button and it will only be loaded for that one email.

You can also prevent images from loading in an iPhone by opening the “Settings” app. Next, click on “Mail.” You will see the mail settings section. Under the “messages” subheading, there is a “Load Remote Messages” checkbox that you should make sure is unchecked.

All of these solutions will prevent people or companies from being able to tell if you have opened the email until you choose to load the images in those emails. However, if you click a link in the email, it might still be a tracked link and they can infer that the email was opened.

Interested in finding out more about email trackers? Try this Wired article.