---
title: "Settings: Tracking & Privacy"
description: "Every field on the Tracking & Privacy tab: email open and click tracking, the system log, visitor tracking, the consent banner, exclusions and storage."
url: "https://hiveplugins.com/docs/hive-mail-settings-tracking-and-privacy/"
updated: "2026-10-28"
category: Hive Mail
---

# Settings: Tracking & Privacy

**Hive Mail > Settings > Tracking & Privacy** decides what Hive Mail records about email opens and clicks and, if you switch it on, about site visitors. You need **Manage settings**. Cards appear and disappear as you change **Visitor tracking** and **Consent**, before you save. The save bar shows **Discard changes** and **Save changes**; if a value is refused, a box titled **Nothing was saved** says why. Read [what marketing intelligence records](/docs/hive-mail-what-marketing-intelligence-records/) before turning visitor tracking on.

![The Tracking & Privacy tab with visitor tracking off](https://hiveplugins.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/hivemail-settings-tracking-off-17.webp)

| Setting | What it does | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Open tracking** (card **Email tracking**) | **Track opens per contact**, **Anonymous (counts only, no contact or IP)** or **Off**. Some mail apps load the picture on their own, so opens are a guide | Track opens per contact |
| **Click tracking** | **Track clicks per contact**, **Anonymous (counts only)** or **Off** ([Email tracking](/docs/hive-mail-email-tracking-opens-and-clicks/)) | Track clicks per contact |
| **System log level** (card **System log**) | **Debug (everything)**, **Info**, **Warning (problems only)** or **Error (failures only)**. Read the log in [Settings: Tools](/docs/hive-mail-settings-tools/) | Warning |
| **Keep system logs for** (days) | Older lines are deleted daily; 1 to 365 | 30 |
| **Visitor tracking** (card **Visitors on your site**) | **Off (nothing is recorded)**, **Anonymous (no cookie, no IP stored, a new daily code)** or **Full (a first-party cookie links visits across days)** | Off |
| **Consent** (Full only) | **Wait for consent (recommended)** or **Track straight away: I have a valid consent mechanism elsewhere, or my visitors need none** | Wait for consent |

See [Turn on visitor tracking](/docs/hive-mail-turn-on-visitor-tracking/). The card **Cookie banners and other tools** (Full mode, or when a consent tool is found) shows what Hive Mail found: [Use Hive Mail with a cookie-consent plugin](/docs/hive-mail-use-with-a-cookie-consent-plugin/).

## Consent banner and design

Shown only in Full mode with Wait for consent. Every field is explained in [The consent banner](/docs/hive-mail-consent-banner-and-privacy-choices/).

| Setting | What it does | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Show Hive Mail's consent banner** | Shows the built-in banner (covers Hive Mail only) | Off |
| **If your site already has a cookie-consent tool** | **Show my banner only when no other tool is found (recommended)**, **I use another cookie-consent tool: never show Hive Mail's banner** or **Always show Hive Mail's banner, even beside another tool** | Recommended |
| **Banner title** | Up to 60 characters | **Cookie for visit statistics** |
| **Banner text** | Up to 400 characters; `{site}` is your site name | A ready text |
| **Accept button**, **Decline button** | Up to 30 characters each | **Accept**, **Decline** |
| **Privacy policy address** | Address or path; empty uses the WordPress privacy page | Empty |
| **Show a small "Privacy choices" button after the visitor answers** | If off, add a link to `#hivemail-consent` | On |
| **Position** | **Bottom left** or **Bottom right** | Bottom left |
| **Colours** | **Match the visitor's device (light or dark)**, **Light**, **Dark**, **Custom colours** | Match the device |
| **Background**, **Text**, **Accept button**, **Accept button text**, **Decline button**, **Decline button text** | Custom colours only, `#rrggbb` | `#ffffff`, `#111827`, `#5539fb`, `#ffffff`, `#4b5563`, `#ffffff` |
| **Corner roundness (px)**, **Width (px)** | 0 to 24; 280 to 520 | 12; 380 |
| **Font** | **Use my site's font** or **Plain system font** | Site font |

![The Banner design card with the live preview and the Position, Colours, Corner roundness, Width and Font fields](https://hiveplugins.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/hivemail-settings-tracking-banner-design-18.webp)

## What is recorded, left out, buying interest, storage

Shown in Anonymous or Full mode (**Pages that show buying interest** in Full only).

| Setting | What it does | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Respect "Do Not Track" and Global Privacy Control** | Browsers sending either signal are not tracked ([details](/docs/hive-mail-do-not-track-and-who-is-never-tracked/)) | On |
| **Record clicks on links to other sites** | Keeps host and path, without the query string | Off |
| **Record file downloads** | Records clicks on download links (pdf, zip, doc, xls, ppt, csv, mp3, mp4, dmg, exe, apk and others, or any link with `download`) | Off |
| **Do not track logged-in people with these roles** | Tick list of roles | **Administrator** |
| **Do not track these addresses** | One per line, up to 50; end with `*` for everything starting with it | `/wp-admin*` and `/wp-login.php` |
| **Do not track order confirmation and receipt pages** | WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads order pages | On |
| **Do not track account, password and sign-up pages** | Pages whose addresses can hold a name, order number or key | On |
| **Pages that show buying interest** | Once a day, a recognised contact viewing one gets +1 engagement ([score](/docs/hive-mail-visitors-journeys-and-engagement-score/)). One per line, up to 50, `*` allowed; product and download pages always count | `/pricing` |
| **Trusted proxies** | Addresses or ranges (for example `10.0.0.0/8`), up to 50, that may supply the visitor address in `X-Forwarded-For`. Empty means the header is never read. The address is never stored | `127.0.0.1` and `::1` |
| **Keep visit details for** (days) | Older visits, pages and events, and visitors not seen for 13 months, are deleted daily; 7 to 365 | 90 |

Settings apply to new visits from the moment you save. While tracking is on, WordPress's Privacy Policy Guide gets a section **Hive Mail visitor tracking**. Hive Mail limits requests to 120 a minute per browser (filter `hivemail_tracking_rate_limit`). On a multisite network the cookie is `hm_vid_` plus the site number.

> **Warning:** Full mode can link browsing to a named contact. Decide how you will tell visitors and ask for consent before switching it on.

Next: [Settings: Compliance](/docs/hive-mail-settings-compliance/), [Visitor tracking shows nothing](/docs/hive-mail-visitor-tracking-shows-nothing/).

This is information, not legal advice.