How to Stop iOS 15 Mail From Downloading Remote Images

remon! I think we have a solution.

Switching off the top setting brings up two further options. If you switch both of them on, then the Mail app seems to behave as it did in the good old days (of about a week ago). You’ll no longer automatically see remote content. Instead you’ll be offered a chance to “Load all images”.

Cheers!

Hello remon12,

We would like to see how we can help. Just to be sure we understand correctly, can you let us know specifically what that error messages says. Check out this link, and let us know if it applies to your issue: If you see 'Unable to load remote content privately' at the top of an email

Cheers!

Hello remon12,

You can tap Load Content to bypass the warning, and allow Mail to receive the remote content without using Mail Privacy Protection. If you are not seeing that prompt, we recommend contacting Apple directly for further assistance at: Get Support

Cheers!

You’re very welcome.

If I may expand a bit on what I believe remon is asking:

Many of us, prior to iOS 15, have had Mail set to not automatically load remote content. We may have been motivated by various things — conserving bandwidth and storage space, for example — but certainly also by privacy concerns.

When, upon updating to iOS 15, we were presented with this new privacy feature, "Protect Mail Activity," we turned it on happily enough, thinking it would provide a new level of protection. And probably it does — but it also has the undesirable feature of downloading all the remote content that we were trying to fend off before, no matter how voluminous, data-intensive, ugly or otherwise obnoxious.

And it appears there is no way now to turn it off.

Our two options at this point appear to be: leave matters as they stand, or turn off "Protect Mail Privacy" — and either way, it seems the Mail app is now going to download remote content automatically, in the background, forevermore.

Unless we are missing something. Please tell us that this is the case.