Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

Apple is absolutely aware of the problem and knows everyone wants it to reverse the change it made to IOS 14. I've contacted Apple about it and shown them this thread.

A senior manager confirmed to me that a change was made to IOS 14 that stops people from being able send pics as attachments.

So far, Apple has ignored calls for this change. And it does seem to allow a bot to gaslight and spam this thread with misinformation every time somebody tries to post about it. If anyone tries to complain about the spammer, the posts are deleted while the spam posts remain. ..... So, that tells you that Apple doesn't want to correct the problem, which is really frustrating and making many of us consider going back to the PC eco-system.

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. You can Google "how force Outlook (or Thunderbird) to open email as plain text". You can leave it that way or change back to view as HTML when done. One advantage of leaving it in view all email as plain text is that it is more secure since you are much less likely to accidentally download a virus. For Gmail as viewed in the Chrome browser (and possibly also in other browsers), when looking at the list of emails in a folder it will show any embedded pictures as attachments that can be easily saved. When the email is opened the picture will be embedded but upon closing and looking at the list of emails the attachments will be visible as such and can be saved.

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.

Here's another workaround I just found, from the iPhone.

In the photos app select the photo or photos that you want to email. Hit the upload (share?) button (square with an arrow pointing up out of it). Scroll down to "Save to Files". Save it where you want, I made a folder called "email photos".

Now you can go into your email composer. Instead of attaching a photo choose attach file. From here you can attach the photos you saved to files. The only caveat is it'll be in HEIC format. Right now Windows at least doesn't open that natively.

BernardSer wrote:

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

They already were «attachments».

The only change is in how that very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of a single email client and its derivatives) displays and treats the attachments.

tomjraymond wrote:

Here's another workaround I just found, from the iPhone.

In the photos app select the photo or photos that you want to email. Hit the upload (share?) button (square with an arrow pointing up out of it). Scroll down to "Save to Files". Save it where you want, I made a folder called "email photos".

…

Again, they already were «attachments».

The only change is in how that very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of a single email client and its derivatives) displays and treats the attachments.

…

Now you can go into your email composer. Instead of attaching a photo choose attach file. From here you can attach the photos you saved to files. The only caveat is it'll be in HEIC format. Right now Windows at least doesn't open that natively.

You can change the default format for the «photos» you take, on your iDevice, from “High Efficiency” («HEIC») to “Most Compatible” (JPEG). (Go to Settings -> Camera -> Formats.)

Thanks for the tip about the HEIC/JPEG.

My company uses IBM Notes (no, not HCL, 9.0.1FP10...), and it's hard enough to just copy/paste text from emails on it. Viewing "embedded" photos the way the iPhone sends them is a nightmare, and I still have know idea how to convert those into an image file. The technique I described above was the only workaround I found to emailing pictures directly from my phone in a way that my colleagues would actually find usable.

tomjraymond:

Your company uses «IBM Notes» as your receiving email client?

Further. That is the old IBM version, rather than from the new owner of the code (HCL)?

I’m not familiar with that email client, nor do I know what its coding history is.

Does it ever have an option to save all attachments?

I just had a long conversation with Apple support and was able to show them the problem with screen sharing and many attempts to make it work.

If Apple wants to make us use their iCloud email, it will be a losing battle for Apple. Most companies use outlook for their corporate email and they have a lot of PO customers. I rather download the Outlook app, or change to a different cellphone brand if I have to, than start using iCloud email.

Fortunately there are a few workarounds like attaching a micro-video or a PDF.

Attaching a small email or PDF works but it is a hassle to do every time. You can also download the Outlook app and send your email from the app instead.

Don’t email Apple, they are apparently not reading those. Call them, talk to a live person, and let them know how this is affecting your company and your business.

I already wrote to that email address and got me nowhere. Talking to a live person, and then her manager, and she talking to the engineers, means at least 4 more people at apple are aware of the problem and how annoying it is to customers. So no, it is not bad advice. Call them!

euro37 wrote:

I already wrote to that email address and got me nowhere. Talking to a live person, and then her manager, and she talking to the engineers, means at least 4 more people at apple are aware of the problem and how annoying it is to customers. So no, it is not bad advice. Call them!

I did not give you an email address. And that URL tells you up front there will be no response.

More people may be aware but they can't make change. Their recording of the issue is of no extra value than using the exact method Apple asks you to provide Feedback.

You are free to believe whatever you wish.

The fix for this is quite simple (actually a work around). Make sure you have no signature with anything but plain text. Don't use anything such as color or bold type and your outgoing email from an iphone will not be HTML and the picture will show up to others as an attachment

They are «attachment[s]» regardless how they may «show up to others», snowmelt.

Unfortunately, there is a very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of a single email client and its derivatives) that “refuses” to perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves), if the internal structure of the received email is not “to its liking”.

No other email clients have any such issues. All others understand the more full International Internet Standards governing email creation and interchange.

The «signature with anything but plain text» was a solution in some of the pre iOS 14 versions of this issue, but, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to always be sufficient to form an email that that very tiny subset of email clients will fully “accept”, and treat properly.

(Incidentally, it appears that that very tiny subset of email clients hasn’t progressed for over a decade, now. Maybe longer.)

Hi all, I noticed my email asking to ignore Halliday has been deleted again like it has been for so many others.

If you filter out any posts that mention “tiny subset of email clients” as that is an absolute load of rubbish as if it was as such this thread would not exist