The Tracking Pixel Isn't Dead. It Just Learned to Dodge Gmail.

The Pixel That Refuses to Die

Email tracking pixels have been around for over a decade. They are tiny, invisible 1x1 images embedded in HTML emails. When your email client loads one, it pings a remote server and confirms you opened the message. That single ping can reveal your IP address, the time you read the email, your device type, and sometimes your approximate location.

Gmail and Apple both rolled out protections designed to break this tracking loop. Gmail routes images through its own proxy servers. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection preloads images before you even see the email. Marketers were supposed to lose visibility into your inbox. Instead, they adapted.

How Tracking Pixels Work Under the Hood

A tracking pixel is just an image tag with a unique URL. When your email client renders the HTML, it requests the image from the sender's server. The server logs the request and records that you opened the email. A typical implementation looks like this:

<img src="https://analytics.company.com/track/user123.gif" width="1" height="1">

That URL is unique to you. When it loads, the server knows exactly which email was opened, by which recipient, and when. The HTTP request also includes your IP address and your email client's user agent string, which reveals your device, operating system, and email app.

Gmail's Image Proxy: What It Blocks and What It Doesn't

Since 2013, Gmail has routed all email images through Google's own proxy servers. When a tracking pixel fires, the request comes from Google's infrastructure instead of your device. This masks your real IP address and strips your location data. After the first load, Gmail caches the image, so repeat opens do not trigger additional server pings.

But the proxy does not block everything. Here is what still gets through:

• First open confirmation: The tracking server still receives one request when Gmail's proxy fetches the image, confirming the email was opened
• Open timing: The timestamp of that request reveals approximately when the recipient engaged with the email
• Click tracking: Gmail's proxy has no effect on link tracking. Every link click is still fully visible to senders
• Engagement signals: The gap between email delivery and first open still gives marketers valuable data about recipient behavior

Gmail's proxy was never designed to eliminate tracking entirely. It was designed to protect your IP address and prevent repeated tracking. The fundamental open signal still works.

Apple Mail Privacy Protection: Better but Noisy

Apple's approach, introduced in iOS 15, is more aggressive. Mail Privacy Protection preloads all email images through Apple's proxy servers at delivery time, regardless of whether the recipient opens the email. This means every email appears "opened," flooding tracking systems with false positives.

For Apple Mail users, this is genuinely effective. Marketers cannot distinguish real opens from preloaded ones. Location data points to Apple's servers. Device information is masked. But Apple Mail Privacy Protection only covers the Apple Mail app. If you use Gmail's web interface, the Outlook app, or any other email client on your iPhone, Apple's protection does not apply.

What Marketers Still See in 2026

Despite both protections, the email marketing industry has adapted. Modern email analytics platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Outreach have shifted from relying solely on open rates to combining multiple signals:

• Pixel plus click correlation: Pairing open data with link click data to confirm engagement
• Reply detection: Tracking whether recipients respond to emails
• Engagement scoring: Building profiles based on cumulative behavior across multiple emails
• AMP for Email: Interactive email content that can track interactions without traditional pixels

Open rates are now described as "fuzzy at best" by industry analysts. But marketers are not abandoning tracking. They are layering new methods on top of the pixel to fill in the gaps.

How to Actually Block Every Tracking Pixel

Gmail's proxy and Apple's MPP reduced what trackers can see, but they did not eliminate the tracking itself. The open signal still fires. Engagement patterns are still visible. And click tracking is completely unaffected by both protections.

To fully block tracking pixels, you need a tool that intercepts them before they load. Browser extensions like Gblock detect and neutralize tracking pixels in Gmail before they can fire, preventing even the first open signal from reaching the sender's server. Unlike Gmail's proxy, which still allows the pixel to load once, a dedicated blocker stops the request entirely.

The tracking pixel has survived every platform level protection thrown at it so far. Gmail's proxy, Apple's MPP, and even GDPR consent requirements have slowed it down but not killed it. If you want to read your email without feeding data back to senders, relying on your email provider alone is not enough.