What is Shortwave Image Fetcher?
Shortwave Image Fetcher is a privacy-focused service that proxies images from HTML emails through Shortwave's servers to protect users' IP addresses and maintain email privacy when viewing content in their AI-powered email client. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Shortwave |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | No |
| Insights Last Updated | August 11, 2026 |
Do you operate this agent? Contact us to suggest an update.
Category
Expected Behavior
Shortwave Image Fetcher usually makes a single request within seconds of a URL being shared, without crawling further. Traffic rises and falls with sharing activity, so a widely circulated link can produce a sharp burst of fetches.
Shortwave Image Fetcher's User Agent
| User Agent | Shortwave Image Fetcher |
How To Block Shortwave Image Fetcher With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to request that Shortwave Image Fetcher not access your website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to request the same of all fetchers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Shortwave Image Fetcher # https://knownagents.com/agents/shortwave-image-fetcher
Disallow: /Global Statistics for Shortwave Image Fetcher
As of August 11, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
0% of top websites block Shortwave Image Fetcher in their robots.txt files.
Overall Fetcher Traffic
2.6% of all web traffic came from fetchers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block Shortwave Image Fetcher?
Usually not. Blocking Shortwave Image Fetcher may leave shared links without a title or image, making them less inviting to click. If it begins fetching at unexpected volume, try rate limiting before blocking it outright. Almost none of the top websites we track currently have robots.txt rules for Shortwave Image Fetcher.
Does Shortwave Image Fetcher Follow Robots.txt Rules?
No. Shortwave Image Fetcher is not expected to follow robots.txt directives, so a disallow rule only communicates your preference. Enforce the block with firewall or server rules, then use Agent Analytics to verify that its requests stop.
Does Shortwave Image Fetcher Access Private Content?
No. Shortwave Image Fetcher has no credentials and should access only the public URL and assets needed for a preview. It does not continue through the rest of your site.
Why Is Shortwave Image Fetcher Visiting My Website?
Someone shared a link to your page. Shortwave Image Fetcher fetched it to build a preview card, and each new share may trigger another request. A spike often means your content is circulating more widely.
How Can I Tell if Shortwave Image Fetcher Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks Shortwave Image Fetcher visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user-agent string contains "Shortwave Image Fetcher". Look for a page and its preview assets being requested without follow-up navigation. Because Shortwave Image Fetcher does not publish a verification method, any client can claim its identity and a log match is only a clue.