How to Check if an Email Has a Tracking Pixel (And Tracked Links)

To check if an email has a tracking pixel, view its source and look for a tiny image, usually 1x1, whose address is unique to the recipient. Paste the HTML or the .eml into the tracking pixel checker and it lists every pixel with the reason it was flagged, and which links pass through a click-tracking redirect, including whether that tracking domain is your own.

It matches patterns in text you paste. It never loads anything.

The by-hand way

1. In Gmail, open the message and choose More, then Show original. In Outlook, view the message source or save it as .eml.
2. Search for <img tags with width="1" or height="1", or addresses with long ID strings.
3. Note the host of each image and each link.
4. Compare those hosts with your own domain.

Step 1: get the source

Copy everything from Show original, or the HTML of your own campaign. Optionally enter your sending domain if you pasted HTML without headers.

Step 2: run the check

Press Check. Pixels are listed with the reason each was flagged. Links are grouped by host.

Step 3: read the link hosts

Label	What it means
Sender click tracking	The link passes through the sending platform's redirect
Recipient security rewrite	Your own filter, such as Safe Links, rewrote it
Looks tracked	The shape matches tracking but no vendor is named
Plain	An ordinary link

Vendor names appear only for documented address patterns. Other tracking hosts are reported by shape.

Should you turn it off

Opens are unreliable, and a pixel on a shared tracking host ties your mail to that host's reputation. Many cold emailers turn open tracking off and measure replies instead. Our guides cover the trade-off in open tracking and cold email deliverability and how to know if someone read your email. If you keep click tracking, put it on your own subdomain. The custom tracking domain generator builds the record, and checking a CNAME and tracking domain shows how to confirm it.

What this check cannot do

• It matches patterns and never loads anything, so a pixel on an ordinary-looking image address, or set up by CSS background, can be missed.
• A normal 1x1 spacer image in an old table layout is flagged too. Check the address.
• Other tracking hosts are reported by shape, not by name.

Check the list the campaign goes to

Tracking is sorted. Bounces still hurt your domain more. Upload the list on the verify page: the first 100 email checks are free with a Google sign-in, no card. Each address comes back valid, risky or invalid with a reason, and nothing is sent to anyone on the list. For larger or recurring lists, see bulk email verification, list cleaning and pricing.

Check an email now

Paste its source into the tracking pixel checker.