Every email: "Your network preferences prevent content from loading privately". Why?

There is a known clash in Monterey involving 3rd party anti-virus which prevents iCloud mail from loading content in Apple Mail, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253303599?login=true&page=1 Do you have AV installed eg. Avast/AVG? If so, try a Safe Boot or just turn off your email shield and see if that helps.

The solution I discovered today that works for my Mac computers is to change a network setting... System Preferences > Network > select your netowrk in the left column > Advanced > Proxies > disable/uncheck Auto Proxy Discovery.

iainfromwentworthville wrote:

It seems related to "Limit IP address Tracking" in Network Preferences, under the relevant interface (Ethernet, or WiFI). Turning this off, the privacy content loading works fine in Mail. I don't know how these two interact.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/66198428-52d9-4748-93ab-8c9075ae6c80

Private Relay is a VPN of sorts, so it is partly, or possibly fully, redundant to Mail's privacy protection. I suspect we need to choose one or the other. I have private relay turned off as it's still in Beta. Private Relay is also part of iCloud+, which is a paid service.

I have an early 2015 MacBook Air running Monterey. The suggestion to go into Safari/Privoxy was not applicable in my case. But I was able to solve the "your network preferences prevent" this way:

Clicking the WiFi icon at the top of my screen, going into Network Preferences-Advanced-Proxies....and unchecking Auto Proxy Discovery, clicking ok and closing that out.

I closed the Mail app, relaunched it, and found that fixed the content error message problem. I did not select another proxy as I need to research and see which if any are necessary.

Thanks. Yes, when I turned off the “Web Shield” in my AV (3rd party), it solved the problem of mail content not being automatically loaded without turning off “Protect Mail Activity”. Now I will check with the AV vendor to see what they say.

It seems related to "Limit IP address Tracking" in Network Preferences, under the relevant interface (Ethernet, or WiFI). Turning this off, the privacy content loading works fine in Mail. I don't know how these two interact.

This worked for me:

Under System Preferences > Network > Advanced > Proxies, there's a text field with the heading 'Bypass proxy settings for these Hosts & Domains.' It had some text in it that I deleted, at which point Mail worked properly again.

If it's only happening at your office, it's likely because your office network has a firewall in place preventing communication with Apple's secure servers.

If your IT staff is Mac friendly, you may want to have them read these documents:

• iCloud Private Relay Overview
• Prepare Your Network or Web Server for iCloud Private Relay - Support - Apple Developer

I apologize, “limit ip address tracking” is found on the first screen after SysPref>network. Unchecking this option DID

WORK so images now load properly in Mail even with my AV fully enabled. Being a novice, does anyone know the

security ramifications of de-selecting “limit ip address tracking”?

For me in monterey 12.1 apple mail images came in after I turned off :

SYS-PREFS>network>wifi - limit ip address tracking

Open mail app select Mail > Preferences > Privacy ( last tab) and you will have to disable or untick - ' Protect Mail Activity ' , 'Hide IP address' & 'Block all remote content' , after this all the contents for the email will load automatically .

Hope solves the issue. :)

Restarting my computer fixed this. If you haven't tried that, give it a shot!

Have you installed or run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

I'm sorry, I was referring to

I encountered the same flaw, and eventually figured out that I could make Mail Privacy Protection work by disabling the Web filtering proxy Privoxy. I presume there's some Privoxy config tweak that will allow the two to coexist.

wondered where/how this web filtering proxy was changed

I agree the whole thing isn't very clear. Why does the error send us to Network Preferences without clarity on what to do?

Proxy enable/disable is buried in the Advanced settings for the relevant interface in network System Preferences, but you can get there via a shortcut in Safari's preferences (look for a "Change Settings" button labeled "Proxies" at the bottom of the General tab).