Opening a PST email: are remote images and trackers loaded?
Marketing emails hide tracking pixels that report when you open them. We made a test email with the usual tricks and ran it through the Mailattic cleaner, which prepares the HTML before it is shown.
| In the original email | After cleaning |
|---|---|
| Tracking pixel: <img src="http://tracker..."> | Image address removed, nothing is requested |
| Remote logo: <img src="https://cdn..."> | Image address removed |
| CSS background: url(http://...) | Style removed |
| Link: <a href="https://..."> | Link address removed, the text stays |
| <script>, <iframe> | Removed |
| Second email: <form>, onload, onclick, <meta refresh> | Form, handlers and redirect removed, only the paragraph text remains |
| Size | 330 bytes of HTML became 82; the app reports 3 remote images blocked |
Details
Images embedded in the email itself (cid: or data:) are kept, so normal emails still look right. Everything that would contact a server is dropped, so opening an old archive does not tell any sender that you read it.
Measured with generated test emails, not a real mailbox. We did not capture network traffic for this page; the result is the cleaned HTML itself. Tested 2026-10-31. mailattic-core 1.0.0.
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About Mailattic
Mailattic is our Windows app that opens a .pst without Outlook, reads attachments, and exports EML, MBOX and PDF. Read-only: your archive is never changed.
Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Microsoft. Outlook and Microsoft are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation and are used only to say which files this opens.