How to Get Gmail to Ask Before Displaying External Images

Many of the emails that you receive in your Gmail inbox are likely to contain some images.

For example, if you ever subscribed to a company’s newsletter or if you receive emails about the latest deals from your favorite stores, then there are almost certainly images embedded in the body of those emails.

But if you also use another email provider, or if you use Microsoft Outlook, then you may have found that the emails sometimes look different when you receive them there.

That is because you may have an option enabled in Gmail that will display external images that are embedded in your emails.

If you would prefer to have the option of choosing whether or not to display those images, then the guide below will show you which setting to modify.

How to Stop Showing Images by Default in Gmail

The steps below are going to change a setting in the Web browser version of Gmail so that it stops displaying images by default.

This means that image-heavy emails, such as newsletters that you might be receiving from stores or organizations, will no longer display those images by default.

Gmail will instead ask you if you would like to display the images in that email before showing them to you.

Step 1: Go to https://mail.google.com and sign into your Gmail account.

Step 2: Click the gear icon at the top-right corner of the window, then select the Settings option.

open gmail settings

Step 3: Select the Ask before displaying external images option to the right of Images.

how to ask before displaying images in gmail

Step 4: Scroll to the bottom of the menu and click the Save changes button.

stop displaying images by default in gmail

Now that you know how to get Gmail to as before displaying external images, you can prevent those pictures from downloading until you decide that you want to see them.

Have you ever sent an email and immediately realized that you made a mistake? or have you sent an email and immediately decided that you didn’t want to send it? You have the ability to give yourself a few seconds to unsend an email. This article will show you where to find and enable the setting that allows this to happen.

Join Our Free Newsletter

Featured guides and deals

You may opt out at any time.
Read our Privacy Policy