Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

What I'm saying is that right now if I email myself pictures through iPhone email... they are now embedded into the body of the email. In order to save each picture, you need to right-click each picture and save as... huge pain.

Now if you use the Messages texting app and put in your email and send pictures that way, they show up as actual attachments... where you can save all pictures at one time.

There's a difference.

You’re using Microsoft Outlook to receive the email, right?

Oh, I recognize that there is a difference in using the Apple Mail App to send to a Microsoft Exchange server (from which you access your email using Microsoft Outlook), vs. using Messages to text your email address, with a text containing photos.

Additionally, people have found that if they use Apple Mail, but send the email by way of a non-Exchange server, Outlook does the right thing as well.

For your edification, regardless how Outlook, or any other email client, renders (displays) an email, any photos, or other files, are attached to the email in the same way: it’s a very old part of the email Internet protocols.

It doesn’t matter whether Outlook, or any other email client, renders (displays) an email with photos inline (what all too many, here, keep calling “embedded”), or all listed at the end, or the beginning, or whatever, the photos are attached to the email as attachments.

The problem is simply that when Microsoft Outlook renders (displays) photos inline, it disallows you, the user, from performing bulk save operations on these attachments.

If Outlook didn’t do this, to y’all, there would be no issue.

I’m not missing a thing, SCamp1575.

This issue is, most definitely, not an attachment vs. “embedded” or “inlined” or “in the body” issue, because, in all cases, regardless the format of the email, or how it is displayed (rendered) by any particular email client, it is an attachment, pure and simple, as it has been for something going on four (4) decades, now.

Note: if you send the email through almost any other email server (besides a Microsoft Exchange server), the resulting email, on your Microsoft Outlook email client, will allow you to bulk-save your attachments (pictures). Otherwise, Microsoft Outlook will disallow you, the user, from performing a bulk-save of your attachments (pictures).

This is actually a Microsoft Outlook issue, not an Apple issue.

Sure. There was a change in how Apple Mail creates and/or transfers emails to SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers.

Perhaps there is a newer SMTP standard, that Apple has adopted: such changes occur. (Microsoft is “notorious” in not adhering to standards.)

Regardless the change that triggered the resulting change in behavior at the Outlook email client, there would have been no issue, whatsoever, if Outlook would simply allow you the same privileges, with your email attachments, regardless how Outlook chooses to render (display) your email messages.

On the Apple side of the “equation” you could request, by way of Apple Feedback, as you and others have suggested, that Apple provide users an option to create authored emails as plain-text, as I’ve seen in some email clients. Note: plain-text email has been going the way of the “Dodo” for at least a couple of decades, now.

However, at this time, there is no guarantee that this change will affect a solution, in this matter.

(If there was a change to a newer Internet email standard, Apple will not back out of that change.)

On the other hand, all it would take, to solve this issue—guaranteed—is a long overdue update to Microsoft Outlook, to allow users to perform the same bulk attachment operations, regardless how Outlook may choose to render any given email!

That’s really strange Halliday as every email address that I use photos are inline, not attachments . iCloud , gmail, yahoo, btinternet, exchange.

how do I resolve that?

I spent hours taking to Apple already

I haven't used Outlook for years. I am sending photos either using the iPhone mail app or gmail and receiving them in gmail on a Mac desktop running Mojave 10.14.6, so I fail to see how the problem can possibly be blamed on Microsoft. The 1 second video trick does work, so thanks to whoever posted that.

Much less helpful is the pedantic quibbling over language. I don't think anyone else here cares if jpegs which appear as forking great images in the middle of the email are technically "attachments" or not. Since Halliday doesn't seem to share our concerns, or have anything helpful to add to the discussion, I wonder why he is still here quibbling rather than getting on with his no doubt rich and fulfilling life elsewhere.

The real question, JessamineInLondon, is not how they appear (or are rendered or are displayed).

The real question is whether your email client permits you, as the user, to deal with the attachments as the attachments they truly are, or does your email client restrict your use of your attachments, simply because the email client has chosen to display your attachments in some particular manner. (That’s why the language matters: it helps the way people see the issue, by understanding the underlying reality.)

Ask yourself: Is my principle issue in how things appear in my email client, or is my principle issue in how my email client restricts my use of my attachments?

If your principle issue is the former (how things appear), then you are in the wrong thread.

If your principle issue is the latter (how your email client deals with attachments differently, based solely upon how it chose to display your email), then I have provided the most correct long term advice.

(Anything else, is a short-term “bandaid”. As such, it will, almost undoubtedly, “break”, again, before long.)

Dear Halliday

am I missing something here as I mentioned it doesn’t seem to matter which email address I send from or to ( not using Exchange or Outlook at all ) iCloud, gmail, yahoo, btinternet - the photos are shown inline in the email. Perhaps someone can help me to let me know where I’m going wrong ? Thanks for any advice

Hello text2, your experience differs from mine. As long as I don't SEND FROM my MS Exchange address, it doesn't matter what address I SEND TO. I have set the default sending address on my iPhone to g-mail, and send photos as attachments to my MS Exchange address in Outlook 365. They arrive and are shown as attachments, not in-line. No problems. What iOS are you on? I think 14.2 might have solved some of these issues.

Thanks, I just left feedback at the link you posted. Interestingly, the dropdown for "What version of iOS are you using?" only goes up to 14.1.

I guess that's so that they can say "Oh yeah, I'm sure it will be fixed as soon as you install 14.2."

Yes - it was the same when I left feedback. The problem definitely began with iOS 14. My daughter, who stayed on 13.7 on my advice until the bugs in 14 had been sorted out, had none of these problems. I wonder whether PC users can sort easily by using a non Exchange E-mail server address, whereas Mac users cannot because of the operating system they use?

I repeated the demonstration sending to an MS Exchange account, and opened in Mac Mail, and the results were exactly the same. I could download all the attachments using the paperclip icon or Select All/Right click on any image.

Next I tried opening the same email in Outlook for Web. The only way to download the attachments was one at a time.

Demonstrating that the problem is in the mail reader app, not the way it is sent.

JessamineInLondon:

There is absolutely nothing preventing you from pointing out, in the body of your Feedback, that you are using iOS 14.2.

I’ve seen many times where the Feedback form was not up-to-date on Operating System (OS) or App versions.

In such cases, I simply include the corrected information in my Feedback.

Again, JessamineInLondon, is the principle issue in how things appear in your email client, or is the principle issue in how your email client restricts your use of your attachments?

All I have seen, so far, is your complaint about «how things appear in your email client».

Have I got the wrong impression of your messages?

text2:

As with JessamineInLondon, is the principle issue in how things appear in your email client, or is the principle issue in how your email client restricts your use of your attachments?

You ask «am I missing something here»?

If your answer to the first question is «how things appear in your email client», then you have missed the entire point of this entire discussion.

If your answer to that same first question is «how your email client restricts your use of your attachments», then the only thing you’ve missed is the explanation and identification of the issue.

Once identified, the long-term solution is quite clear, though there are “stopgap” measures that provide workarounds, for now (until something else changes and breaks the workarounds).

Of course I could have mentioned that I was using 14.2 in the text but not having the drop-down box up-to-date is sloppy. Changing your system so that familiar actions have unfamiliar results is sloppy. Apple have become complacent.