having an email client that automatically loads images is insane. it means that any spammer / scam emailer can immediately tell if their emails are getting into your inbox vs. being filtered and they can then see where you live, and target their next spam / scam to that geographic location and/or try to find out who you are, etc.

a mail provider like fastmail could in theory be loading image links in emails they will deliver to their users and store them into their own local cache, rewriting the email your client receives so that you see the images served off of your email hosting provider's servers. that would be a straightforward way of preventing any sort of image link tracking across the board, is this a thing?