Things keep on changing at Gmail, and the latest change is that by default, Gmail will display images. What this means is that instead of seeing a small box at the top of the email stating “Images are not displayed”, with a link to display images, Gmail will now display all images.
Gmail will now display images using their proxy servers
So how does this work? Google will be using their own proxy servers to serve images instead of fetching the image directly from image’s own external server. For you and me, this means safe messages, and protection from spammers, malicious websites and more.
However, some of you may still don’t want images to be displayed in the message, because you may be on a slow connection, data cap, or simply don’t want to load those big infographic and other images. Plus, no image means less noise and cleaner emails. So here’s how to make Gmail work the old way, where it displays the images only if the user wants to see it.
How to stop Gmail from displaying images
Click on the Gear icon from the top right side and then click on Settings. Once you open the General tab of the Settings page, click on “Ask before displaying external images.” Don’t forget to scroll down and click on Save changes button.
That’s all you need to do. Gmail will now revert back to displaying images the old way!