Privacy by Default
What the webmail does for you before you touch a single setting, and which settings would undo it.
The Principle
Most mail services are tuned so that mail looks its best. CodaMail is tuned so that reading mail tells the sender nothing. Where the two conflict, the private choice is the default and the pretty one is a click away. Every protection below can be relaxed in Settings; none can be relaxed by a sender.
When You Read
Plain text first
Messages are shown as text. HTML, with its tracking pixels, disguised links and hidden content, is rendered only when you click HTML on a message, and then sanitized.
Setting: Displaying Messages → Display HTML (off). Why.
Remote content blocked
Even in HTML view, nothing is fetched from the sender's servers until you allow it. A banner tells you it was blocked and offers the choice.
Setting: Displaying Messages → Allow remote resources (never).
Images proxied
When you do allow images from someone you do not know, the CodaMail server fetches them. The sender sees the server, never your IP address, location or browser.
Setting: Displaying Messages → Remote images (proxy unknown senders). Proxied vs direct.
No automatic receipts
A sender who asks to be told when you read their message is told nothing unless you say yes, each time.
Setting: Displaying Messages → On request for return receipt (ask me). Ignore request is stricter still.
Attachments contained
PDFs and HTML attachments open in viewers that cannot run scripts, parsed in your browser, never on a third-party service.
Setting: none; always on.
Spoofing flagged
When the visible From address does not match the server that sent the message or where replies would go, you are told above the message.
Setting: Displaying Messages → Trusted sender combinations lists the ones you have approved.
When You Send
- Identifying headers removed. Mail sent through CodaMail does not carry your IP address or the name of your mail software. The message ID is generated so that it does not expose your account name. You can strip more under Settings → Remove Headers.
- Plain text by default. New messages start in plain text, so you never send tracking-capable markup by accident.
- Pictures are embedded, not linked. Images you insert in an HTML message travel inside it; recipients fetch nothing from anywhere to see them.
- No receipts requested unless you tick the option.
- Undo Send gives you a window to take a message back, if you turn on the delay.
- Secure Links encrypt a file in your browser before it is uploaded, so sensitive attachments never sit in anyone's inbox. How.
- Aliases let you give every website its own address, so no one can connect your accounts to each other or to your real address, and any address can be killed with one click. How.
- PGP signing and encryption are built in, with your keys kept under your control. How.
Your Session
- Forged requests are refused. Every link and action in the webmail carries a token that other websites cannot obtain, and the session cookie is never sent on requests from other sites. A malicious page you visit in another tab cannot act in your mailbox.
- Per-session URLs. The random token in the address bar changes every login, so a leaked URL is useless after you log out.
- Referrers are trimmed. When you follow a link from a message, the site you land on learns only that you came from codamail.com, not which page or session.
- Inactive sessions expire, and the sidebar Logout ends one immediately.
- Second factor before anything else. With TOTP or a security key enabled, nothing in the mailbox is served until the second factor is complete, including background requests.
- Last login shows you where your account has been used, so you can spot a stranger.
- App passwords keep your real password off every phone and mail program, and let you revoke any single device.
Settings That Would Undo It
If you want the protections to stay, these are the settings to leave alone, or to set back if someone else used your account:
- Displaying Messages → Display HTML: leave off.
- Displaying Messages → Allow remote resources: leave on never. Always re-enables tracking for every sender.
- Displaying Messages → Remote images: Proxy images from unknown senders or Proxy all images. Load directly reveals your IP address and browser to every sender whose images you allow.
- Displaying Messages → On request for return receipt: ask me or ignore request. The automatic options tell senders when you read.
- Composing Messages → Always request a return receipt: leave off; it asks your recipients to report on you to them, and they often refuse anyway.
- Contacts → Store trusted senders in: review the Trusted Senders book now and then. Everyone in it is exempt from the image banner.
For the bigger picture, including mail programs, PGP and aliases, read How to use CodaMail most securely.