Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

If you join a 1sec movie to the pictures you want to attach to your e-mail, your pictures will become attachments...

I found a work around that is better than saving pictures one at a time by right clicking them.

Go to the email with the embedded photos and right click to select it. Then go to File and select 'save as' in the dropdown menu. You will then need to navigate to a folder you want to save the pictures in. Hit 'open', then 'save'.

I was able to save multiple emails with many photos to the same folder without having to navigate to it each time. Link below is what I found when Googling the problem. Good luck!

https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/outlook/3811-outlook-copy-save-inline-embedded-images.html

I also have this issue. I need to send myself pictures to my work email and IOS 14 just completely broke this capability. I might have a temporary solution on the receiving end of things (as many of you are in my situation, i.e. sending to yourself):

• Save the email to HTML format on your computer.
• In the folder where you save it, there will be a subfolder containing the email data, which includes individual files for each picture sent

It's not perfect and still a large inconvenience, but that's the way I found for now... Let's hope it get fixed properly.

This is so frustrating. A work around I found. As a test, when I go into my text messages and send a photo to my email address (from my phone number) it shows up as an attachment in outlook on my pc. That is a small victory.

Good test, XOOOO.

I’m not at all surprised by the result.

However, it does not quite demonstrate what you have concluded.

Email protocols, like many other Internet protocols, are constantly evolving! They are changing, and the Internet committees making the changes are not under the control of any single company.

That’s completely intentional.

Of course, it is up to each individual company to implement the protocols themselves.

(Incidentally, the protocols are usually created in such a way as to be reasonably compatible with systems only recognizing the older protocols, so things don’t suddenly “break”—at least, not in anything like a “catastrophic” way. There will still be potential feature related issues.)

What your test demonstrates is that iOS 12.4.8 is using a slightly older protocol than iOS 14.2. (Where, exactly, the newer protocol was implemented, I cannot be certain, at this time.)

It also demonstrates how the PC email client you are using on your PC handles the two protocol variants differently.

In both protocols—I can guarantee—the photos, and other files, are attached, as attachments, to the email: this is a very old aspect of the email protocols.

The only difference is in how the attached files are rendered—how they are displayed—on any given email client, and how the client chooses to handle any downloading and saving of said attachments.

I’m sorry to hear that the PC email client you are using doesn’t appear to support bulk downloads and saves for the newer protocol.

That behavior is not within Apple’s control.

We're having the same issue (of course) and deal with lots of site pics every day. As a workaround I've told our team members to install Spark. It's available for both iPhone and iPad. Apple seems to be just too innovative these days. Have sent feedback already but I doubt anything will come from it.

I have been sending pictures for work for 6 years the same way and this is so annoying since the new update . I found a simple way around it . As I have 3 email accounts on my phone I just selected to send it from my gmail account and it arrived as attachments . Best I could do but not a complicated fix at least .

Of course, Tracediggs, as has been well demonstrated—including by way of workarounds—the problem is strictly in any email clients (Microsoft Outlook is the only one that has been demonstrated to have the issue, as far as I know) that refuse to allow you, the user, to perform bulk attachment operations simply because of how the email client has chosen to render (display) your received email.

Sure. There was a change in either the default way Apple Mail formats authored emails, or in the implementation of a newer version of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Internet standard used to transfer email from Apple Mail to your chosen SMTP email server (going to a Microsoft Exchange email server seems to be the only troublesome link, here), or both; that seems to have triggered the issue that already existed in Microsoft Outlook.

However, there is simply no guarantee that changing the default authoring format, in Apple Mail, will actually solve the issue.

It might, but no guarantee!

(As for Apple changing the implementation of a newer version of the SMTP Internet standard, I highly doubt that Apple will back-out of such a change, simply because Microsoft hasn’t made the transition, yet.)

Solution

Easiest way to save multiple embedded photos as follows:

1. Attach as many photos as you'd like through iphone email,
2. Send the email to yourself containing all the embedded images,
3. Open the email from outlook,
4. Save the email as HTML to your desired folder
5. Open the folder and you will see all images are saved as separate attachments, labelled, no need to save all photos individually

Quality will be as how you emailed e.g. medium, large

Hope this helps

I’ve given you the truth, Mystified-OZ.

This is what Lawrence Finch and I have been telling y’all for quite some time:

«Regardless how any given email client may choose to render (display) your received email, all files associated with your email are attachments! Pure and simple.

This is a very old part of the email Internet standards, and is highly unlikely to be changed in the future!

Additionally, as has been well demonstrated—including by way of workarounds—the problem is strictly in any email clients (Microsoft Outlook is the only one that has been demonstrated to have the issue, as far as I know) that refuse to allow you, the user, to perform bulk attachment operations simply because of how the email client has chosen to render (display) your received email.

Sure. There was a change in either the default way Apple Mail formats authored emails, or in the implementation of a newer version of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Internet standard used to transfer email from Apple Mail to your chosen SMTP email server (going to a Microsoft Exchange email server seems to be the only troublesome link, here), or both; that seems to have triggered the issue that already existed in Microsoft Outlook. (Emphasis added)

Yes. Y’all are encouraged to send Feedback to Apple, via their Feedback webpages.

However, there is simply no guarantee that changing the default authoring format, in Apple Mail, will actually solve the issue.

It might, but no guarantee!

(As for Apple changing the implementation of a newer version of the SMTP Internet standard, I highly doubt that Apple will back-out of such a change, simply because Microsoft hasn’t made the transition, yet.)»

Just because a change that Apple made triggered a preexisting issue within some third party software, does not imply Apple’s change was illegitimate. In fact, it is quite likely that Apple’s change is more in compliance with current Internet standards than Microsoft’s well known penchant for “dragging their feet” on Internet standards compliance.

No Lawrence. You are WRONG. Apple as decided not to change the way it handles image files as Attachments. Normally when you compose an email you decide whether you want the image as an inline embedded image in amongst the text or as a binary file attachment. Apple has never had that choice and now the choice they make for us has changed - Previously it attached them as a file attachment, not it embeds them as inline images. Yes, in theory Microsoft could change their software to allow bulk saving of inline image attachments but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people don't want them as inline images anyway and dragging and dropping them out of an email into the file system was a very easy workflow - Now we can't do that. For me considering Office 365 / Outlook is the largest business email platform in the world I would have thought it would actually make sense for Apple to work with it.

The frustration for me is this happened years ago with an IOS update whereby it started doing the same thing. I had a client who used his iphone to take photos of damaged cars and email them to an insurance assessor - The insurance company refused to accept them as inline images. Eventually apple put out another update which fixed it.

We are all hoping they'll see sanity and do that again. Alternately why not ask whether you want them attached or inline??

Also as inline images information like the original filename and EXIF data are lost.

No, I am NOT wrong. If you look at the raw content of an email sent from iOS you will see that the photos are all ATTACHMENTS. That is the only way SMTP can send photos and other attachments. There is no such thing as an embedded image in an email, it is only a choice of how to display the attachments at the receiving end.

Hi Martin,

If you are looking for a solution I think you would be served well with an email client that allows you actually attach photos to email without embedding. Proton mail might be the ticket for your iPhones. That’s what I used for tests and the test was done from an iPad and will work on an iPhone.

I’m sure there are other clients that can do it as well. But ProtonMail can be fully encrypted from end-to-end if both parties are using the client. Might be a win-win for you.

RichardTS wrote:

Sorry but it is you who remain confused, quite possibly because you exist solely in an Apple world where everything is rosy except the functionality you don’t think you need.

I exist in both worlds.

Until I retired, a few years ago, I was fully immersed in the corporate Windows world, complete with Outlook email clients talking to corporate Exchange servers.

I seldom had a problem getting Outlook to do what I wanted. (Of course, I’m also far from any typical corporate user: I’m highly proficient with the technology, and I know what is going on “under the hood”. For instance, I actually know the International Internet Standards, including those governing emails.)

This is NOT about rendering. This is about the difference between embedding and attaching. It is also about your failure to understand how a lot of people who work in the PC world use iPhones every day.

I have always been saying that «This is NOT about rendering»!

When have I said otherwise?

However, this is, likewise, not «about [any] difference between embedding and attaching» of files, including pictures and images, to emails: the International Internet Standards have specified the use of email attachments, regardless the particular formatting used for the email body!

The only difference is in «rendering», since, regardless of the appearance («rendering»), the files, including pictures and images, are kept as attachments to the email.

It’s only those that judge purely by appearances that think otherwise.

I don’t have a Mac but I am pretty sure that Mac mail works pretty much the same as iPhone mail-photos come in as embedded and Apple has written enough code to extract the embedded photos so that they may be saved in bulk with a menu option.

While Mac Mail likely «works pretty much the same as iPhone mail», this is all covered by compliance with International Internet Standards for email: including the attachment of files, even for rich-text (text/html) email bodies, which can display images inline with formatted text (what all too many are calling “embedded”, as if it were not included as attachments), just as with webpages. (After all, it uses the same HTML web standard!)

In the PC world one can ATTACH multiple photos to an email OR embed photos. Yes, Outlook lacks the functionality to extract bulk photos from an email but it can save literally hundreds of attachments in bulk. …

(Emphasis added)

There is no need for any additional code, since the files are attachments, already!

In fact, other than Outlook (and its derivatives), no other email client lacks this functionality.

If it requires some special functionality, why do no other email clients have any issue?

Have you not even paused to reflect upon that question?

This is what has escaped you; there are TWO ways of attaching objects to email in the PC world. Apple lacks this. The PC world does not have that incomprehensible Apple functionality separation between photos and other types of files. In the PC world photos are simply another type of file.

…

Actually, by the International Internet Standards for email, there is but a single way «of attaching objects to email». However, there are at least «TWO ways of» rendering (displaying) emails with attachments!

This is independent of what the attached files may be (though the way such attachments may be displayed [rendered] may differ, somewhat, between email clients, in much the same way webpages can look different on different browsers).

The trouble, mvrd12xa, is that both appearances (so-called “embedded” vs. “attached”) have the very same, underlying attachment structure! (Actually, there are more than just two forms for the email body, which determine the formatting of an email: one is plain-text [text/plain], the others are forms of rich-text, such as text/html [which uses the formatting used by webpages]. However, in all cases, files are attached!)

This is why there is simply no excuse for any email client to prevent users from performing bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-save operations) based upon the appearance of the received email.

Unfortunately, the very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of only a single email client and its derivatives, so far as anyone, here, has been able to determine) with this failing has, apparently, miss-“trained” its users into thinking there is some “intimate”, “deep” connection between the appearance and the functionality (only because their functionality is directly related to how they display given emails).

However, I quite agree that the user should be able to decide between the available email formats.

It would be quite appropriate to provide Feedback to Apple, to request that Apple’s email client (Mail) provide this formatting choice, such as via a choice of default formatting.

While this might help this tiny subset of email clients “do the right thing”™️, there is simply no guarantee that such will accomplish your desired results on that tiny subset of email clients.

In fact, due to the inherent misbehavior of this tiny subset of email clients, any change, to try to get such to “do the right thing”™️, is fragile: inherently prone to being easily broken, by any of a myriad tiny interactions involved in transferring emails.

The only guaranteed (and permanent) solution is to have that tiny subset of email clients corrected, so they no longer have their, current, misbehavior!

However, it’s all up to y’all as to whether y’all wish to pursue the guaranteed (and permanent) solution, or simply some fragile, stopgap “solution”.