How to stop Gmail from displaying images by default

Google has changed the way Gmail displays images in email messages, but you can reverse course if you know where to look in settings.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor

Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.

Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms

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Matt Elliott

Dec. 13, 2013 11:19 a.m. PT

Gmail now displays images by default. No longer will you see emails arrive with the line at the top that says "Images are not displayed" with a link to display the included image or images. Google will now use its own proxy servers to serve images instead of sending them directly from an image's own external host server, which protects you from snooping eyes -- spammers, marketers, and other ne'er-do-wells -- who are attempting to gain information about you from an attached image and the server from which it came.

While a proxy server lets Google display images securely, you still may not want them showing up in your emails if you are on a slow connection or have a data cap. Thankfully, it's easy to return to the old way, where Google politely asks for your permission before displaying an image. On the General tab of Gmail's settings, locate the External content line and click the circle for "Ask before displaying external content."

And while we are on the topic, learn how to disable image previews on Twitter.