Embedded images replaced with blue square/question mark

Guys,

Am new to Macs so it's probably user error however, I regularly receive mails with embedding images in them. On my PC I had they came in fine however on my new Mac all the images get stripped out of the e-mail and saved as attachments. This means all the image place holders in the mail show as small blue squares with a white question mark in them and doing quick look on the attachments shows the correct images!

Is there a config setting that stops mail stripping the images off as attachments when they're "in" an e-mail??

Hope someone can help as this is bugging me now!! 😉

Thanks,
Mark

imac 24" 2.8GHZ, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Nov 16, 2007 2:30 PM

Reply
9 replies

Nov 18, 2007 11:54 AM in response to schroedm

I just installed the new Leopard onto my iMAC bought in September, and I too am having trouble seeing any images in my email; they appear as blue boxes with white question marks. This is a "new" problem for me. In the past I had a problem viewing any Quicktime movies on Safari or firefox all images or movies were blue question marks or the same blue box with a white question mark. That was an easy fix with my Quicktime preferences in the MIME settings, but so far I have not found any fixes for this email problem. Hopefully, the bug will be fixed soon. I know I am still in "education mode" here, but there just seems to be so many little problems all the time.

Dec 7, 2007 8:38 AM in response to Amen311

Had the same problem after moving my files to another computer. Figuring it was a setting issue, I went into the Preference Pane. There I noticed that the setting for leaving unread messages was unchecked. Totally unrelated, but I wanted that setting anyway, so I clicked it, figuring I could then move on with finding why incoming email messages do not display images. And there it was. Mail magically started displaying images. Perhaps the mere threat of me fiddling with the settings made Mail comply to my demands.
Next time I'll try staring at my screen with an angry face. See if that works too.

Dec 7, 2007 9:01 AM in response to schroedm

The setting you're looking for is in Mail > Preferences, under the Viewing tab, where it says "Display remote images in HTML messages".

But think twice before you check that box. Remote images are a key way that spammers validate your email address, since there's code in the email that tells the spammer that your email address is good when you retrieve the remote image.

If you leave it unchecked, when you get an email with images embedded, just click on "Load Images" in the upper right corner of the pane showing your email, and it will load all the images.

Dec 12, 2007 2:08 PM in response to igrok-mac

I have had that box checked for the last 5 years I've owned this eMac and havent noticed any problems yet, so wont bother changing it now! My problem, along this line and I dont think there is a cure for it, is when I receive an email with images in it, I find the following: If I can click on an image and it opens in Preview, then the recipient, when I FORWARD it, will be able to open it okay. If I click on it and it DOESNT open in Preview, then all the recipient will get in a Forward is gray boxes. It seems the majority of the messages that come in with images are in the Non Forwardable category. Any cures for this? Cheers.

Dec 26, 2007 5:41 PM in response to schroedm

I am also receiving email messages where remote images are not loading. This is also happening with some RSS feeds that happen to have links to remote images.

Where images are supposed to appear I am getting a blue box with a question mark inside.

I do have the preference for "Display remote images in HTML messages" checked. Even when I did not have it checked and I chose the option to "Load Images" the images still did not load. If I right-click on the image and choose "Download Image" the image does not download.

If I take the source of any e-mail message and use one of the remote image links within the source in a web browser the image appears without a problem.

Any more suggestions on a fix for this problem?

Mail version 3.1
OSX version 10.5.1

Jan 17, 2008 5:16 AM in response to Simon Rioux

Same problem here, I have tried ticking and unticking the display remote images box, and I still get the blue question mark square, but I can't find the "Load Images"button at all.
BTW my images are .jpg from a Win XP machine.

I can click 'quick look' and see them in the middle of the screen , but not in line with the rest of the email.

Any comments appreciated, I had a PB G4 on 10.3, but used M$ Entourage then, and I used Thunderbird on Win XP, so a complete noob using Mail.

Thanks

Feb 21, 2008 7:14 AM in response to The Bretonian

Don't know if this suggestion will help but..........

I experienced problems with attaching images to outgoing mail. When I did this with my new iMac (OSX 10.4.11) the attached files were replaced with a blue square containing a question mark.

I browsed various forums and found quite a few references to the same problem and I tried all the various 'fixes' to no avail.

Earlier today I called Apple's tech support and spoke with Mujahid. He went through the problem, established that it was 'system wide' on my iMac and then he suggested that I trash Mail (v2.1.2) and re-install Mail (only Mail) from the disks that came with my Mac. I followed his instructions and after a shut down/restart cycle, Mail now functions correctly. When I attach an image file to an outgoing email, the file no longer appears as a blue square with ? mark but as the original image.

I wonder if the same sort of fix might resolve the problems with Safari?

Thanks to Mujahid.

Regards.

Niall

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Embedded images replaced with blue square/question mark

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