It has long been the case that Google has not automatically downloaded images embedded in emails as a security measure. But a recent update has changed the way things are done. Now all images will be automatically loaded, but there is far less of a security risk as they are now delivered through Google’s own proxy servers.
But if you are concerned about bandwidth usage, or just want to stay in control of what appears on your screen, you may prefer that images were treated in the way they used to be. This can be easily done as a quick change in Settings is all that is needed.
Open up your Gmail inbox, click the gear icon to the upper right of the screen and select Settings from the menu that appears.
Move to the General tab and look for the External content section. Here, select the option labelled Ask before displaying external content.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Save Changes button to apply the new settings.
That’s all there is to it. When you load an email in your inbox, you will only see the text by default and will be able to manually choose to display images for individual emails.
