> I always thought gmail requests the images whether you open the email or not since they moved to the image proxy in 2015 or so. No. They request the image (

> I always thought gmail requests the images whether you open the email or not since they moved to the image proxy in 2015 or so. No. They request the image (through their proxies) the first time it's loaded. Only subsequent requests are loaded straight from the cache. That means that, if trackers send personalized tracking pixels (which literally all do), then they still know the first time you read the email. (The only thing that's changed is that they can't tell when you open it subsequent times, and they can't get location information and the like from your IP address). In exchange for taking location tracking away from marketing companies, they turned images on by default for Gmail users.