Is that email tracking you? Check in five seconds.

How to get an email’s original source

Gmail

Open the email, click the three dots in the top-right of the message, choose Show original, then copy everything on the page that opens.

Outlook.com

Open the email, click the three dots in the message toolbar, then View → View message source and copy the contents.

Yahoo Mail

Open the email, click the three dots in the toolbar, choose View raw message and copy the contents.

What this checker looks for

Two things. First, known tracker signatures: the pixel and redirect domains used by more than 25 tools, including Mailtrack, Mailsuite, Yesware, HubSpot Sales, Streak, Mixmax, Outreach, Salesloft, Mailchimp and SendGrid. Second, generic invisible pixels: any remote image sized 1×1 or hidden with CSS, which is the anatomy of every open tracker regardless of brand.

Full transparency: Vidi is itself an email read-receipt tool, and this checker detects Vidi-tracked emails too. We built the detector because we think tracking done honestly survives scrutiny, and tracking done sneakily deserves to be caught.

How to stop email tracking in Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo

A tracking pixel is an image. It reports the open at the moment your mail app downloads it. So the only thing that reliably stops it is not downloading images automatically — there is no separate “turn off tracking” switch in any of the three, and blocking images means some legitimate emails arrive looking broken until you choose to load them. That is the real trade, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

Gmail

1. Open Settings (the gear icon), then See all settings.
2. On the General tab, scroll to Images and choose Ask before displaying external images.
3. Save. Each email now shows a “Display images below” prompt instead of loading them.

Worth knowing even if you leave images on: Gmail already loads every image through Google’s own proxy, so the sender sees Google, not your IP address or your location. Your open is still recorded — Google just anonymises where you were when it happened.

Outlook.com and the Outlook apps

1. In Settings, open the Mail section and find External images. Microsoft’s own name for the protection is Block external images; the alternative, Always use the Outlook service to load images, routes them through Microsoft instead of your device.
2. On the Outlook phone apps, the same switch sits under account settings as Block external images.
3. One limit Microsoft states plainly: it does not block images attached to the email itself, and it applies to the reading pane.

Yahoo Mail

1. Open Settings, then More Settings on the older layout.
2. Click Viewing email and scroll to the bottom.
3. Under Show images in messages, choose Ask before showing external images. It saves itself.

What none of these stop

• Tracked links. A link that goes through a redirect records the click whatever your image setting is. Hover before you click; the checker above flags known redirect domains.
• Apple Mail Privacy Protection works the other way round. It loads the pixel for you, from Apple, so the sender gets an open they cannot attribute to you rather than no open at all. Detail in Apple Mail Privacy Protection and open tracking.
• Read receipts you agree to. A native Outlook or Workspace read receipt asks first. Declining it is the whole protection.

Why so many emails are tracked

Because the silence after sending an email is unbearable, and a pixel ends it. Salespeople want to know a proposal was read. Freelancers want to know the quote landed. Job seekers want to know the application was opened. That is a legitimate need served by an often invisible mechanism, and it is exactly why we built Vidi to do it without pretending: nothing visible added to the email, machine opens labelled honestly instead of faked, and a plain answer to the only question that matters: did they read it? If you are curious how that looks from the sender’s side, see how to know if someone read your email or read about why Apple Mail makes most trackers lie. Waiting on a reply to something you sent instead? Try the follow-up timing calculator for a plain answer on whether it is too soon to check in.

Frequently asked questions