Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

Scamp468 wrote:

Interesting. It works every time for me. Sorry it doesn't for you. I am not techy so I can't explain why. I set my g-mail address as the default sender in "settings".

From my experiments, the sending account is the key.

So here are my results, when sending using the native Mail app and a Gmail email address as the sending account. It is really screwed up! I started in the Photos app, and chose to share them, rather than starting in Mail, and attaching pictures.

I sent 2 sets of emails, each one copied to two email addresses. I have a work email address that uses Exchange and I access it using Outlook 2016 on a PC. The 2nd email address was my Yahoo email address, which I accessed using Chrome browser on my PC.

The first email just had 3 pictures in it. The 2nd one had the 3 pictures AND our infamous 1 second video attached.

MIND BLOWING RESULTS:

Work email address accessed using Outlook

1 - For the first email, the 3 pictures were all embedded, not surprisingly.

2 - For the second email however, I would have expected the pictures to all be attachments, except that didn't happen! They were still embedded.

Yahoo email address accessed using Chrome

1 - For the first email, the 3 pictures were attached!

2 - For the second email, they were also attached.

And then, I did one more test by sending from Yahoo to my work address, a few pictures plus the 1 second video, and to my shock, they were embedded. When I resent it using my work address as the From account, the showed up as attachments.

What a messed up situation!

Once again, TarHeelTech, there is no such actuality of photos/pictures being “embedded” within an email.

All there ever is are attachments.

These attachments can appear (a superficiality) in ways that look like some people’s concept of “attachments”, or they can appear (a superficiality) in ways that look like some people’s concept of “embedded”, or, more properly, inline with other components of an email message, such as formatted text.

This is part of what I meant when I wrote «I thought I could expect better of you.»

Formatting and rendering of email bodies and the attachments thereof, is but a superficiality.

There is no such thing as “embedded” content, in emails, unlike embedded content in webpages: having the HTML tags contain the coded form of an image, for instance, rather than referencing an image file.

That entire concept is non-existent, with regard to emails, at this time.

(There may be a time, in the future, when embedding [or whatever they may choose to call it] may become a part of the International Internet Standards that govern email creation and interchange. However, I have seen no evidence that any such is even being proposed, at this time.)

If, on the other hand, all you care about is the formatting (appearance) of an email, then use an email client that lets you format the appearance of your outgoing emails however you like.

You can even provide Feedback to Apple on what Formatting control you wish to have, when creating email within Apple Mail.

However, be aware that there is no International Internet Standard that forces the receiving email client to perform any specific formatting. Such may or may not have the affect you desired. Actually, if you want that much control, you should send a PDF of your email as a document. (I believe there was a proposal to use PDF as a type of rich-text email, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on, for one reason or another.)

Otherwise, you could actually try to invalidate my hypothesis, if you will:

1. «Apple Mail is, and always has been, «send[ing] emails … where the photos are … attachments, like how it [has always] be[en] for years», even at those times, through the years, when this Outlook issue surfaced with previous iOS versions.»

(Hint: appearances, formatting, and other superficialities have absolutely no bearing upon this hypothesis.)

Now. Which shall it be.

@All:

Here is the definitive test of the question of «attachment» vs. «embedded» in emails from Apple’s Mail App:

1. Creat an email, in Apple’s Mail app, that you believe shows «embedded» files/images/photos/pictures/whatever.
2. Send that email to an account where you can open that email in an email client that allows you to View the Raw Source of that email.
3. Copy that Raw Source, and paste it into the More Text portion of a comment, here.

Of course, you should eliminate any personal information in that Raw Source, before sending it to us.

By the way, in order to keep the Raw Source from being too terribly long, it will help to use smaller image files. Maybe just 10x10 pixels, perhaps. However, that is only a suggestion to help in deciphering the Raw Source.

Apple’s Mail app on Mac has the ability to View the Raw Source. (It doesn’t include any of the transport Headers, such as From, To, and many other transport fields. So, unless you have personal information in your files/images/photos/pictures/whatever, or the text within your email, there shouldn’t be any personal information to be eliminated.)

Back when I was in the Corporate and Governmental sectors, the Pro version of Outlook we used had a very similar capability. Please let us know if that is still available in your version.

Along with the Raw Source, please let us know if you have found any «embedded» versions of your files/images/photos/pictures/whatever, within the Raw Source, and, if so, where you found it.

You should, instead, find only cases of your files/images/photos/pictures/whatever as «attachments», as per the Official Internet Protocol Standards.

If you have trouble making “heads or tails” of the Raw Source (which is nothing but text, with even your files/images/photos/pictures/whatever given in a textual form, though it will read as “gibberish”), we, your fellow users, here, can help y’all understand what is there.

One could perform multiple variations on this test, such as performing the various “workarounds” people have posted, within this Discussion, to see how that changes the Raw Source of the received email.

This will give us all far better information on what is actually going on.

I do hope this suggestion will help get past the purely superficial appearances, and the “he said, she said” arguments, by getting down to what the actual emails contain.

Upgraded to 14.4.1, and getting same result. Sending from a Hotmail account on iPhone to Outlook on a PC I get embedded. Sending from a Bell (Canada) email to Outlook, I get attachments. I can live with that because Hotmail is my junk account and I don't normally send from it.

madisonNYC:

Certainly. Send Apple your Feedback.

Feedback grounded to the realities of the situation, will have a good chance of making a difference.

Feedback not grounded in the realities, will have very little chance of making any difference.

Mystified-OZ wrote:

So why doesn’t it simply work like before iOS 14?

it’s a pia now guesswork how to save group photos and those you send them to can’t save them

However, as you can easily check, using the definitive test, found at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251807601?answerId=254806789022#254806789022, to see what is actually going on; y’all can verify that the «photos» are always attachments.

So, if there is any problem with any email client properly dealing with the attachments, the issue is not with the email, but with the particular email client.

Welcome, iancbs, to Apple Support Communities!

iancbs wrote:

Why, why why! It has just taken me a good 5 minutes to email 5 images from my phone and save in the right place. THis would have been 30 seconds before the images can on ly be sent embedded in the mail. PLEASE allow either a choice, or go back to attachments, so when I am back at my PC I can save where I want!

However, as you can easily check, using the definitive test, found at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251807601?answerId=254806789022#254806789022, to see what is actually going on; y’all can verify that the «images» are always «attachments».

As one can see, using that definitive test, there are no «embedded» «images».

So, if there is any problem with any email client properly dealing with the attachments (such as bulk-saves), the issue is not with the email, but with the particular email client.

ahungryhungarian wrote:

Appearances are what the thread is concerning, you are misunderstanding the issue.

Tell that to all the users complaining about how difficult it is to save photos/images/etc. when they send such via email?

Besides, if the only thing you are concerned about is «appearances», then your path is quite clear: you can:

1. Choose an email client that provides the ability to produce whatever «appearance» you desire.
2. Provide Apple with Feedback on what email formatting features you desire.

ahungryhungarian wrote:

… Appearance and functionality go hand in hand on any system that uses touch as an interface. If it looks different, then the fact that you are touching different things means the experience and process of using it is different. …

Once again, if the only thing you are concerned about is «appearance»—even if you consider such to be a usability/«functionality» issue—then your path is quite clear: you can:

1. Choose an email client that provides the ability to produce whatever «appearance» you desire.
2. Provide Apple with Feedback on what email formatting features you desire.

To continue to “complain”, “accuse”, “debate”, “argue”, etc., here—where Apple does not read such—is, at best, useless. (It may even be counterproductive.)

OK, correct me if I am misunderstanding what you are saying...

You are saying that Outlook has always had a flaw specific to how it displays attachments. Apple's iOS Mail app has always sent email attachments in accordance with Internet Email Standards. Prior to iOS 14, iOS 13 was coded in a way that helped Outlook translate around their flaw in coding that allowed Outlook to display attachments the way Joe User who sent it from their iPhone wanted it to be displayed (as an attachment instead of inline / embedded). When Apple upgraded to iOS 14, their built-in native Mail app continued to meet International Email Standards, but they removed this translation coding that got around the Outlook flaw. So you're saying that the real solution isn't for Apple to re-add that additional translation code, but Outlook needs to fix their code to rid themselves of this flaw that displays attachments as inline / embedded. Correct? Sorry to be so wordy, but I'm trying to get the necessary details to finally understand after 48 pages of posts that have not conveyed to a laypersons like me, what the real crux of the issue is.

Thank you for your continued attempts to educate. I'm sure it's been frustrating to you to have to post the same thing again and again. Maybe we all just needed a translator code to help us understand.

So, ahungryhungarian, the only issue you have is about appearances.

Once again, if the only thing you are concerned about is «appearance»—even if you consider such to be a usability/«functionality» issue—then your path is quite clear: you can:

1. Choose an email client that provides the ability to produce whatever «appearance» you desire.
2. Provide Apple with Feedback on what email formatting features you desire.

To continue to “complain”, “accuse”, “debate”, “argue”, etc., here—where Apple does not read such—is, at best, useless. (It may even be counterproductive.)

CJCragg wrote:

How come people don’t get that we want to take a photo or photos, select them and send them, and have them arrive as savable attachments. Just like we used to do before IOS 14. That’s it, that’s all.

I absolutely and fully «get that [y’all] want to take a photo or photos, select them and send them, and have them arrive as savable attachments.» (emphasis added)

I also, absolutely and fully, «get that» «we [all] used to do [so] before IOS 14.»

I also, absolutely and fully, know that we have had times with these sorts of issues even in versions of iOS prior to iOS 14: always involving the same email client (or its derivatives) at the receiving end.

I absolutely and fully understand how it can seem like the “obvious” and “easy” answer is for Apple to simply backtrack whatever changes they made that (seemingly) “broke” what «we used to do before IOS 14.» (And all previous times this “broke”.)

However, from my half-century of computer experience, I know that only when one correctly identifies and attributes an issue, will it have any chance of being satisfactorily resolved.

Misattributing an issue as being due to company A, when such is actually due to company B, will seldom, if ever, result in a satisfactory resolution. (In fact, I have never experienced any case where such resulted in a satisfactory resolution.)

Y’all may always feel free to provide whatever Feedback to Apple you wish.

However, I have been trying to help y’all to more correctly identify and attribute this issue, so a truly satisfactory resolution may be had by all.

jocelyne195:

It’s just fine to do as madisonNYC has suggested.

However, the only true solution is to get the actual responsible company to correct their long neglected email client software.

After all, only that other company (the creator of the very tiny subset of email clients that exhibit the failing of disallowing users to perform bulk attachment operations [such as bulk-saves] based only upon their own internal code) has the ability to truly fix the issue (which resides within that very tiny subset of email clients).

Apple, unfortunately, cannot correct that software, since Apple doesn’t control that very tiny subset of email clients.

jocelyne195 wrote:

Thank you everyone for answering and for these helpful solutions. … I think writing to Apple is a good idea, but do they care? … That said, in the larger scale of life these days, this is a small problem.

Yes. This «is a small problem», in the larger scheme of things.

Yes, «writing to Apple is a good idea», and I’m sure they do care. For instance, I have often received feedback, from Apple’s developers, when I have provided good bug reports to them.

Unfortunately, from the research, we found that there is little Apple can do to actually solve this issue, since the real issue is due to an email client (and its derivatives) that is the responsibility of a different company.

JayZeeP wrote:

Halliday says above that only 1 family of clients has the issue. I can attest that Outlook, eM Client, Thunderbird and Gmail (only tested on Chrome browser) all have the same issue. The attached pictures can be made to show up as listed attachments in Outlook and Thunderbird if you force those email clients to display all emails as Plain Text. …

(emphasis added)

So. When you wrote «I can attest that Outlook, eM Client, Thunderbird and Gmail (only tested on Chrome browser) all have the same issue», you appear to be only referring to the formatting of the received email.

What I wrote was:

«However, only a single email client (and its derivatives) has any problem allowing its users to properly perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves) upon any given received email, based upon some internal criteria known only by its creators.

No one else have such troubles, since all images (and other sent files) are provided «as attachment[s]».» (emphasis added)

I’m not, personally, familiar with «eM Client», but, so long as it is not a derivative of «Outlook», it will have no such issue.

«Thunderbird and Gmail ([whether through a browser or Google’s App])» have no such issue.

However, it’s good to know that «Outlook» can be «force[d] … to display all emails as Plain Text», since «Outlook», then, seems to properly allow its users to properly perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves) upon such received email.