Beware of using private relay with Apple Mail (at least on macOS). You currently can't both use private relay AND disable automatic remote content loading, so looking at a spam message will immediately load all pictures, and you will be spammed to oblivion. The spammer won't know your IP but that's little comfort, you're now a top spot on their list.
You should be able to do this (although not immediately obvious) by:
- Opening Mail, Preferences, and going to the Privacy tab.
- Unchecking "protect mail activity"
- Checking "hide IP address"
- Checking "block all remote content"
Now you have automatic remote content loading disabled, and have private relay enabled. You would need to test this with a "friendly" bit of remote content to be certain, but it seems to work.
When doing this, also ensure you have limit IP tracking enabled on your ethernet or wifi network, as that appears to override this setting (based on the help content which is available in this tab).
At least on iOS, Mail Privacy Protection is designed to load all resources immediately upon receiving the email, not when viewing it.
Maybe this still indicates the email is valid to a spammer, but it wouldn’t show that you opened it (unlike i.e. Gmail’s image proxy, which only loads upon viewing.)
