8 ms·

I receive a lot of newsletters and communiqués, some of which I even signed up for. So, I don't know what designers use to receive e-mail, but here in the non-

by zwaps 6y ago

I receive a lot of newsletters and communiqués, some of which I even signed up for. So, I don't know what designers use to receive e-mail, but here in the non-designer / non-linux world, Outlook is pretty popular. Now, Outlook - at least all configurations I have seen, has pictures via HTML disabled. I have sampled a few IT departments only, of course, but I feel like this is probably a pretty common policy. So let me tell you: Your picture banners, your "rounded corner buttons", your main engagement centerpiece that's just a picture ... it all ends up being one of those nice 90's type beveled empty box we remember from surfing with IE and ISDN. This may be a shock, but it really doesn't make your important newsletter look any better. So, if you are not specifically going for nostalgic "bad modem connection" look and feel, maybe ease off the HTML pictures a bit, okay?

colechristensen 6y ago
People who use gmail/gsuite get html emails, the images are proxied by google. People using gmail are a huge chunk of the market.
- uberswe 6y ago
  I did not know that images get proxied. Either way, I use gmail with images turned off by default and I rarely enable images for specific senders.
- Humdeee 6y ago
  Interesting. I've always thought that images within emails would also serve as a read receipt to the server that sent them when enabled or shown. Would this still apply? Google providing a proxy for this could totally pollute this data (which could be a good thing!).
  - ncallaway 6y ago
    My understanding is that is exactly why Google provides a proxy for that.
    - tomschwiha 6y ago
      Last time I checked Google is proxying the external ressources right in the moment when the email is opened, so it just protects the IP address.
      - hunter2_ 6y ago
        Someone tested [0] and the result agrees with you. And this Gmail help article [1] elaborates on the scope of protection, which is equivalent to "IP address and HTTP headers": > Google scans images for signs of suspicious content before you receive them. > These scans make images safer because: > - Senders can’t use image loading to get information about your computer or location. > - Senders can't use the image to set or read cookies in your browser. > - Gmail checks the images for known harmful software. Sometimes, senders may know whether you've opened an email that has an image. Gmail scans every message for suspicious content. If Gmail thinks that a sender or message is suspicious, images aren’t shown and you’ll be asked if you want to see the images.". ### Personally, I think this is quite silly, because I routinely disclose my IP address and HTTP headers without considering it particularly sensitive, but I don't want senders to know that their their email messages have been opened. [0] https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-and-what-this-means-for-you/ https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-... [1] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?hl=en-GB https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?hl=en-GB
        sildur 6y ago
        Wouldn't this image rewriting mess with e-mail signing?
        hunter2_ 6y ago
        To validate a signature, the code doing that validation needs direct access to the message prior to any rewriting. I don't think the proxy introduces any barriers to that access, assuming the validation occurs on Gmail servers, as the Gmail interface can present the results of that server-side validation. If you wanted to validate it yourself instead of trusting Gmail to do it for you, you'd use the "Show original" feature which gives you the original (per its namesake) without any rewriting as well. I assume (but haven't tested) that connecting to your mailbox via IMAP, POP, etc. also causes you to retrieve the original, with the rewriting only coming into play when using the Gmail web interface.
  - signal11 6y ago
    > I've always thought that images within emails would also serve as a read receipt to the server that sent them when enabled or shown Yes, that's exactly what happens. Proxying the image only hides the user's IP address. If the images in the email load from external resources like https://example.com/fetch-resource?id=something_unique https://example.com/fetch-resource?id=something_unique GMail has no way of knowing if something_unique uniquely identifies a user. This is why disabling images is helpful. Of course Gmail also lets you enable images per sender, and you may find that quite acceptable for sites you have a relationship with (e.g. a shopping site which already knows your IP address and is sending you delivery notifications).
arendtio 6y ago
To be precise: it is not like pictures are disable, but instead 'external resources' are disabled. So if you embed the picture into the e-mail it will be shown. For small pictures that is quite reasonable.
- hunter2_ 6y ago
  Ding ding ding. As a sender, the upside is that virtually all GUI users will see the images without prompts or placeholders; the downside is that you don't get a read receipt. As a (GUI user) recipient, the upside is that you will see the images without prompts or placeholders while preserving your privacy; the downside is that you hit your storage quota way sooner. Technically, embedded images are a lot like attachments, but mail clients are smart enough not to display the little has-attachment paper clip download widget because the MIME headers for the image will say "Content-disposition: inline" instead of "Content-disposition: attachment". Then the HTML img element references it using the cid: scheme instead of the https: scheme or similar. Anyway, the experience is great. I suspect Mail Studio doesn't offer this because its MO is that "Designs are exported as standard HTML and can be imported in your email marketing platform of choice." This embedded image technique would require that Mail Studio export (or send) the entire multipart MIME message, not just the HTML part.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
Here we have a newsletter which is wholly one big raster screenshot without any fancy html and no trace of text.
- zwaps 6y ago
  Heh, I get those. It comes to me as an empty bevel box and an unsubscribe link. That’s what I call succinct!
mohsen1 6y ago
Earlier in my career I decided to go around this by rendering photos in HTML Tables! http://azimi.me/img2html/ http://azimi.me/img2html/
lucideer 6y ago
Outlook is probably the most common desktop client, but I think most people (even in corporate settings) are using webmail these days; either Google Apps Suite or Office 365. The former at least displays images by default (Google re-hosts them and rewrites the email source). Not sure if MS does the same.
- extra88 6y ago
  Outlook for Web does have something similar now they call "Outlook service" that loads images through the service under their Privacy and data settings. I think it defaults to "Always use" and the alternative is "Don't use." It sounds like it definitely protects your home IP address from being exposed, it might not prevent a tracking pixel working as read receipt if it doesn't fetch the image until you open the message. My messages still don't load remote images and are topped with "Some content in this message has been blocked because the sender isn't in your Safe senders list" followed by a link to add the sender's address to the trusted list and another link to show blocked content in this particular message. I have Apple's Mail desktop and mobile apps set to not load remote content but I think the default is for them to load.
- skipnup 6y ago
  In the many companies I've seen in Germany not a single person used outlook OWA except for when outlook had problems starting up..
- zwaps 6y ago
  It probably depends on the industry. Some of the biggest companies in Europe use Outlook the desktop client, with said external resources disabled. May differ in technically more advanced countries, of course.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Webmail is actually better thN the desktop client, but I have to remember to keep it in the background. A desktop client with a thin wrapper around the websinterface would be best.
- megablast 6y ago
dijit 6y ago
I always assumed this was intentionally done this way so that people click the “display external content” warning and inadvertently activate the tracking pixels.
- WrathOfJay 6y ago
  IIRC, that was the exact argument for disabling image loading when it was first introduced. The responsible thing for services like gmail and o365 to do would be to eat the resource costs and just open ALL external content within a privacy sandbox, thereby polluting the data. Then you can re-enable displaying of images for everyone and the experience for designers and end users gets better.
  - girvo 6y ago
    Gmail does exactly that, I believe? It proxies the external resources to hide your IP. What it can’t do sadly is strip out tracking functions (unique IDs and such). Dunno how that could even be solved tbh
    - account42 6y ago
      Gmail proxies the images when you open the email. What the parent is suggesting is for Gmail to download the images as soon as the server receives the email, thereby rendering any tracking data meaningless.
tibu 6y ago
Last time I check Outlook for Windows had 4% popularity among our customers and Word as render engine. Actually everything broke what other standard mail clients could handle. We had to make a lot of idiot changes because of Outlook in the content. We still have sometimes issues but if the rendering brakes we don't treat Outlook errors as blockers anymore.
grae_QED 6y ago
This. Plus if you pay for stuff like mobile data and receive dozens of emails a day on your phone, these high MB emails add up. Less bloat means more money saved for me at least.

by zwaps 6y ago

colechristensen 6y ago

People who use gmail/gsuite get html emails, the images are proxied by google. People using gmail are a huge chunk of the market.

uberswe 6y ago
I did not know that images get proxied. Either way, I use gmail with images turned off by default and I rarely enable images for specific senders.
Humdeee 6y ago
Interesting. I've always thought that images within emails would also serve as a read receipt to the server that sent them when enabled or shown. Would this still apply? Google providing a proxy for this could totally pollute this data (which could be a good thing!).
- ncallaway 6y ago
  My understanding is that is exactly why Google provides a proxy for that.
  - tomschwiha 6y ago
    Last time I checked Google is proxying the external ressources right in the moment when the email is opened, so it just protects the IP address.
    - hunter2_ 6y ago
      Someone tested [0] and the result agrees with you. And this Gmail help article [1] elaborates on the scope of protection, which is equivalent to "IP address and HTTP headers": > Google scans images for signs of suspicious content before you receive them. > These scans make images safer because: > - Senders can’t use image loading to get information about your computer or location. > - Senders can't use the image to set or read cookies in your browser. > - Gmail checks the images for known harmful software. Sometimes, senders may know whether you've opened an email that has an image. Gmail scans every message for suspicious content. If Gmail thinks that a sender or message is suspicious, images aren’t shown and you’ll be asked if you want to see the images.". ### Personally, I think this is quite silly, because I routinely disclose my IP address and HTTP headers without considering it particularly sensitive, but I don't want senders to know that their their email messages have been opened. [0] https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-and-what-this-means-for-you/ https://blog.filippo.io/how-the-new-gmail-image-proxy-works-... [1] https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?hl=en-GB https://support.google.com/mail/answer/145919?hl=en-GB
      - sildur 6y ago
        Wouldn't this image rewriting mess with e-mail signing?
        hunter2_ 6y ago
        To validate a signature, the code doing that validation needs direct access to the message prior to any rewriting. I don't think the proxy introduces any barriers to that access, assuming the validation occurs on Gmail servers, as the Gmail interface can present the results of that server-side validation. If you wanted to validate it yourself instead of trusting Gmail to do it for you, you'd use the "Show original" feature which gives you the original (per its namesake) without any rewriting as well. I assume (but haven't tested) that connecting to your mailbox via IMAP, POP, etc. also causes you to retrieve the original, with the rewriting only coming into play when using the Gmail web interface.
- signal11 6y ago
  > I've always thought that images within emails would also serve as a read receipt to the server that sent them when enabled or shown Yes, that's exactly what happens. Proxying the image only hides the user's IP address. If the images in the email load from external resources like https://example.com/fetch-resource?id=something_unique https://example.com/fetch-resource?id=something_unique GMail has no way of knowing if something_unique uniquely identifies a user. This is why disabling images is helpful. Of course Gmail also lets you enable images per sender, and you may find that quite acceptable for sites you have a relationship with (e.g. a shopping site which already knows your IP address and is sending you delivery notifications).

arendtio 6y ago

To be precise: it is not like pictures are disable, but instead 'external resources' are disabled. So if you embed the picture into the e-mail it will be shown. For small pictures that is quite reasonable.

hunter2_ 6y ago
Ding ding ding. As a sender, the upside is that virtually all GUI users will see the images without prompts or placeholders; the downside is that you don't get a read receipt. As a (GUI user) recipient, the upside is that you will see the images without prompts or placeholders while preserving your privacy; the downside is that you hit your storage quota way sooner. Technically, embedded images are a lot like attachments, but mail clients are smart enough not to display the little has-attachment paper clip download widget because the MIME headers for the image will say "Content-disposition: inline" instead of "Content-disposition: attachment". Then the HTML img element references it using the cid: scheme instead of the https: scheme or similar. Anyway, the experience is great. I suspect Mail Studio doesn't offer this because its MO is that "Designs are exported as standard HTML and can be imported in your email marketing platform of choice." This embedded image technique would require that Mail Studio export (or send) the entire multipart MIME message, not just the HTML part.

GoblinSlayer 6y ago

Here we have a newsletter which is wholly one big raster screenshot without any fancy html and no trace of text.

zwaps 6y ago
Heh, I get those. It comes to me as an empty bevel box and an unsubscribe link. That’s what I call succinct!

mohsen1 6y ago

Earlier in my career I decided to go around this by rendering photos in HTML Tables! http://azimi.me/img2html/ http://azimi.me/img2html/

lucideer 6y ago

Outlook is probably the most common desktop client, but I think most people (even in corporate settings) are using webmail these days; either Google Apps Suite or Office 365. The former at least displays images by default (Google re-hosts them and rewrites the email source). Not sure if MS does the same.

extra88 6y ago
Outlook for Web does have something similar now they call "Outlook service" that loads images through the service under their Privacy and data settings. I think it defaults to "Always use" and the alternative is "Don't use." It sounds like it definitely protects your home IP address from being exposed, it might not prevent a tracking pixel working as read receipt if it doesn't fetch the image until you open the message. My messages still don't load remote images and are topped with "Some content in this message has been blocked because the sender isn't in your Safe senders list" followed by a link to add the sender's address to the trusted list and another link to show blocked content in this particular message. I have Apple's Mail desktop and mobile apps set to not load remote content but I think the default is for them to load.
skipnup 6y ago
In the many companies I've seen in Germany not a single person used outlook OWA except for when outlook had problems starting up..
zwaps 6y ago
It probably depends on the industry. Some of the biggest companies in Europe use Outlook the desktop client, with said external resources disabled. May differ in technically more advanced countries, of course.
Aeolun 6y ago
Webmail is actually better thN the desktop client, but I have to remember to keep it in the background. A desktop client with a thin wrapper around the websinterface would be best.
megablast 6y ago

dijit 6y ago

I always assumed this was intentionally done this way so that people click the “display external content” warning and inadvertently activate the tracking pixels.

WrathOfJay 6y ago
IIRC, that was the exact argument for disabling image loading when it was first introduced. The responsible thing for services like gmail and o365 to do would be to eat the resource costs and just open ALL external content within a privacy sandbox, thereby polluting the data. Then you can re-enable displaying of images for everyone and the experience for designers and end users gets better.
- girvo 6y ago
  Gmail does exactly that, I believe? It proxies the external resources to hide your IP. What it can’t do sadly is strip out tracking functions (unique IDs and such). Dunno how that could even be solved tbh
  - account42 6y ago
    Gmail proxies the images when you open the email. What the parent is suggesting is for Gmail to download the images as soon as the server receives the email, thereby rendering any tracking data meaningless.

tibu 6y ago

Last time I check Outlook for Windows had 4% popularity among our customers and Word as render engine. Actually everything broke what other standard mail clients could handle. We had to make a lot of idiot changes because of Outlook in the content. We still have sometimes issues but if the rendering brakes we don't treat Outlook errors as blockers anymore.

grae_QED 6y ago

This. Plus if you pay for stuff like mobile data and receive dozens of emails a day on your phone, these high MB emails add up. Less bloat means more money saved for me at least.