Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

AntonioMarcos:

I didn’t present any “solution” (since the only solution I know is to replace the use of non-standards compliant email clients [Outlook and its derivatives, which haven’t seen substantive updates in over a decade]).

I was commenting upon a “solution” presented by another user, asking that user whether their found “solution” was on Apple Mail, or some other email client.

As it turned out, their “solution” was on another email client (“gmail”).

Philosophies aside...

I think the forum question here is simple:

a) files like .pdf, .cdr, .xlx and any other, Mail Apple user has the "right" to attach;

b) image files, Mail Apple user has the "NO RIGHT" to attach in their emails.

AntonioMarcos wrote:

Philosophies aside...

I think the forum question here is simple:

a) files like .pdf, .cdr, .xlx and any other, Mail Apple user has the "right" to attach;

b) image files, Mail Apple user has the "NO RIGHT" to attach in their emails.

They are attached, regardless. The only possible difference pertains to (completely optional, and ignorable by any email client that chooses to) formatting options.

This is pure fact. Hence, no “philosophies” involved.

AntonioMarcos wrote:

I suggest everyone to COMPLAIN!

I believe a shower of feedback can make Apple go back and bring back the most obvious feature ever created since email was created!

Please claim:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

That is always an available, and, even, encouraged, option!

A "very tiny subset of email clients"? I've tried 3 different (but common) email clients and they all behave the same with incoming email from ios14+ devices, or outgoing email from ios14+ devices. So I guess the 3 common email clients that I've tried just coincidentally fall into the "very tiny subset of email clients." I haven't been able to find an efficient way of sending photo ATTACHMENTS when ios14 or higher is involved.

SMH.

@LawrenceFinch. I HAVE read your note. I use Gmail from Google, and Outlook from Microsoft. Further, I didn't just take a cursory look and give up. I did confirm you were correct about an inline text message not being a truly embedded file -- thank you for that -- but that was as far as I got after trying to adjust my settings. It remains the case that I cannot download a photo from my iPhone (the source of my pictures), not from any of my email clients could download the photo.

I don't mind refraining from calling this a defect, but do us a solid here, given you are obviously quite knowledgeable, can you share with us the setting and/or default we should be looking for? Whether this was a defect or a bad idea, or even a good one, there are thousands of us who are aggrieved.

So, if you don't mind, please fill us in on what obvious fix we're missing?

ejberg wrote:

A "very tiny subset of email clients"? I've tried 3 different (but common) email clients and they all behave the same with incoming email from ios14+ devices, or outgoing email from ios14+ devices. So I guess the 3 common email clients that I've tried just coincidentally fall into the "very tiny subset of email clients." I haven't been able to find an efficient way of sending photo ATTACHMENTS when ios14 or higher is involved.

As Lawrence Finch wrote, above: “Any properly written email client has an option to download the attachments. … If yours doesn’t you are using a brain-damaged email client.”

I only know of three (3) email clients (all from the same [non-Apple] company: OutLook and its derivatives) that have this problem.

What “3 different (but common) email clients” are you having this issue with?

(There is a possibility that some other email client has been added to the “brain-damaged email client” list, though I wouldn’t expect this.)

Tantalite wrote:

@LawrenceFinch. I HAVE read your note. I use Gmail from Google, and …

That’s new, having Gmail (from Google) now having this issue!

Gmail used to work well.

I wonder what happened to them?

I wonder why they “broke”?

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I just tested the gmail web client. I was able to download several attached “embedded” images just by clicking the Download All icon.

That’s good.

What about the Gmail application, particularly running on Windows (if you have access to such)?

I see. Stop using Outlook, which, you say without attribution, fails to follow a world wide standard. What is that standard? How can it be world wide if a client with enormous market share doesn’t, according to you, follow it? Or is as you put it in a tiny minority? I’ve asked many times to know what this colossal defect is, I never hear about it. I’m beginning to suspect this is just troll commentary. Prove my wrong by explaining why widely used windows email clients are in a tiny minority? Why did the work just fine before? And it was not downloading multiple images that it was the problem, it was a single image. Finally, as an owner of Mac products I doubt you know how an android would work.

Tell us what it is Outlook doesn’t do that almost all other clients do and, if you can, tell us how it’s somehow not Apples fault when everything worked fine griot to version 14.1? ‘Cause this is a board where people are supposed to offer solutions, not shill for a product.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I have macs, and I use the Apple Mail app for some gmail accounts. It supports bulk image downloads.

No problem, Lawrence Finch.

I, also, have no current access to Windows machines. (However, I do have the GMail app on my iDevices, even though I, likewise, use Apple Mail to access my gmail accounts. [I’m not sure if I have it on any of my Macs, though.])

Unfortunately, the link in my previous email isn’t correct!!!!

Hopefully, the following will be correct: Email photo as attachment, not embedded, … - Apple Community

Just in case, here it is in text:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251807601?answerId=254806789022#254806789022

It’s interesting. I do occasionally use Outlook, and when I right click on an image I have an option to download the image. Both the app and office365 online. This thread is primarily about bulk downloads, that don’t work in Outlook; each image must be downloaded separately. But other posts confirm that you can download each image separately.

I need to attach a pdf file that has forms in it. In fact, I need to attach several multipage pdf files to an email. If these multipage documents are imbedded, then I am unable to send them as attached files that the recipient can dowmload to their computer.

I have just replaced Dell/Windows computer with mac mini after 30 years in Windows. Although Outlook was a pain, I should be able to send pdf attachments to clients from Mac Mail as files without having to open a browser to gmail or outlook.com.

Any suggestions? I've tried to configure image attachments as icons in Terminal with "defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes", but that doesn't seem to help. If I attach the file in Gmail as a draft and then open Mail App in MacOS, the mail app has converted the attached pdf file to inline text. I can attach a large excel workbook, MS Word document, but when I try to attach a pdf file, it imbeds as inline text.

Finally, I've sent the file from iCloud account in Mac Mail app to outlook.com account. When I open Oultook.com mail in a browser, the attachment is not imbeded but when I initially open it in the browser, it is garbage. But, if I save the attachment to my Mac desktop as a pdf file and I can open it in Preview. Finally, I have verified that when I send pdf attachments to my windows laptop, my mail client (Outlook) shows them as attachments, but if they go to an apple device (Mac or iphone) then the pdf will already be converted to text.

Tried this with a 10 page document "saved as pdf" in MS Word on Windows and it does not imbed as text. Then I saved the same file as pdf from MS Word on Mac and it converts to text. So this artifact (feature) of imbedding the pdf as text seems to be restricted to pdf files created in MacOS.

It is very distracting to have a pdf attachment expand in my mail client on Mac. I don't have any idea what the email will look like for other mac recipients, but on my iphone it does expand and looks like text in the email.

Same here. So frustrating and dumb to change this. I thought devices were supposed to get smarter and easier to deal with, not the other way around.

This needs to be updated so users can choose whether to embed or attach in settings.