Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

It embedded the pictures in my email even when I used my gmail account in the native mail app. It attached them when I used the Outlook App. Some of my users don’t like the Outlook App for their default handler.

Have you updated to iOS 14.2? I think it is worth doing. I am now running IOs 14.2 and have three e-mail addresses. One is on a Microsoft Exchange Server, the second is standard g-mail and finally the iCloud address which I think everyone has?. Sending emails from my iPhone, using the first address, Outlook on my PC shows them in-line (embedded). Using the g-mail or the iCloud address, they are shown as attachments as was the case before iOS 14, when any sending address was used. So I have just changed the default e-mail sending address on my iPhone to g-mail. No idea why!! But problem seems to be solved. I do hope this is helpful.

Have you updated to iOS 14.2? I think it is worth doing. I am now running IOs 14.2 and have three e-mail addresses. One is on a Microsoft Exchange Server, the second is standard g-mail and finally the iCloud address which I think everyone has?. Sending emails from my iPhone, using the first address, Outlook on my PC shows them in-line (embedded). Using the g-mail or the iCloud address, they are shown as attachments as was the case before iOS 14, when any sending address was used. So I have just changed the default e-mail sending address on my iPhone to g-mail. No idea why!! But problem seems to be solved. I do hope this is helpful.

I had this same issue. I spent 1 hour on phone with apple support and they said there is nothing they can do to revert back to being able to send picture as an attachment. they told me to put in a feedback as this would be the only way apple might improve on next update. https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Please everyone, supply feedback to change this back!

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.

I have posted this earlier in this thread, but to save you trawling back - the first method I used was to accompany the pictures with a VERY short (1-2 second) video. This makes the photos also go as attachments. You then discard the video. Seems mad but it works. Secondly, I have three e-mail addresses. One is on a Microsoft Exchange Server, the second is standard g-mail and finally the iCloud address which I think everyone has? Sending emails from my iPhone, using the first address, Outlook on my PC shows them in-line (embedded). Using the g-mail or the iCloud address, they are shown as attachments as was the case before iOS 14, when any sending address was used. So I have just changed the default e-mail sending address on my iPhone to g-mail. No idea why!! But problem seems to be solved.

I’m just as discouraged as the rest of you that have the issue emailing photos with our iPhone as we have always done up until the latest ios14 update.

I found a workaround that works for me. I have my email account set up as the default outlook through Microsoft 365.

1) up a new email and click into the message body

2) find the photo or multiple photos you want to email.

3) Attach any other file to this same email. in my case I have a PDF file that I attached to the same email all of the photos that I attached into that email from my iPhone show up on my PC as JPEG’s

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.

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.

The point you have missed is that many people take photos on their iPhones all day and have a need to send these to a PC email client to transfer them to their PC. There once was a day when one could simply mount their iPhone in Windows and copy the photos over. But, no, Apple now has a better way-make it virtually impossible to identify or find the photos one is interested in the Windows file manager, leaving the only convenient path of email to get their photos to their PC.

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.

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. 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.

In short, people are frustrated because they have to jump thru hoops just to save a few email files all because Apple decided that one should not have the choice to simply attach and not embed photos.

THIS was the problem in iOS 14. The problem has exactly zero to do with email misbehavior and has ALL to do with Apple having non-standard behavior, as the company has demonstrated time and time again.

But all this is moot because someone at Apple has obviously been reading this forum because I ran a new test today. Guess what? Two photos INSERTED or EMBEDDED in an iOS Mail email now, magically, come in as attachments and are rendered as attachments in Outlook. This is using the same Outlook application that I have had installed for several months on my PC. But, you might note, Apple has recently released iOS 14.3 and fixed the errant behavior.

Another workaround is on the phone reply to any email, don't include any attachments from the original (unless needed) change the recipient and delete the body of the original email (if not required) type in your new message and subject then attach the photo/s and send. The photo/s are sent as attachments in the email.

I use either of two workarounds.

The first involves attaching a very short video (1-2 secs) with the photos. You then discard this when received. This seems to work fine with all MS accounts.

The second (this needs you to have a g-mail account) is to use g-mail as the default sending account from the iPhone and send to a g-mail account.

Both these methods work with iOS 14.4.

Hope this is helpful.

I understand that Apple has no intention of fixing this. They regard changes made in iOS 14 as improvements. They expect receiving Mail Servers to emend their systems to deal with it. MS mail accounts show the photos embedded. G-mail still renders them as attachments.

N-K-O wrote:

As I see it, a MIME message can contain the following internet properties in its header:

At least you are looking into part of the actual International Internet Standards that govern email creation and transfer.

Content-Type: multipart/mixed:

Multipart/mixed is used for sending files with different Content-Type header fields inline (or as attachments) (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME)

All those «Content-Type» headers are for attachments, regardless how such may be formatted into the Body of the email.

This, of course, is not truly appropriate if all «Content-Type[s]» are the same, but no one will “arrest” you, if you use it for such cases.

Content-Type: multipart/related:

A multipart/related is used to indicate that each message part is a component of an aggregate whole (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME), i.e. embedded images.

Again, of course, all the parts (whether “related” or “mixed”) are attachments, regardless how they may be formatted within the email Body.

What the good folks here are complaining about is that Apple Mail at one time used the Content-Type: multipart/mixed header, and at some point switched to specifying Content-Type: multipart/related if the only content were JPGs.

The mail tool I use (as well as Apple Mail form IOS 12, I confirm after a test this morning) sends a JPG with Content-Type: multipart/mixed.

That is an interesting find, and may explain why certain “workarounds” succeeded at getting the very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of a single email client and its derivatives, according to all testing I, and others, have seen or accomplished) to “do the right thing”™️.

This may suggest that the problem, with that very tiny subset of email clients, is that they will only allow their users to perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves) when the MIME header, for the attachments, is «multipart/mixed».

Why would that be?

What “logic” makes that reasonable?

I could, almost, see a sort of “logic” in the opposite behavior: at least the bulk operation is being applied to “related” parts.

Once again, we find a lack of standards compliance, causing all the hassles y’all have been experiencing with that very tiny subset of email clients.

No other email clients have this—shall I say, rather “odd”—misbehavior, with email attachments.

To me this is not a matter of compliance, both are compliant MIME messages, it was a choice of which header to include. And as we have discovered, selecting a video and emailing it with Apple Mail will result in Content-Type: multipart/mixed, meaning the tool can include either header, but chooses not too for JPG attachments.

As I said, we do, perhaps, see why that “workaround” actually succeeded at getting that very tiny subset of email clients to “do the right thing”™️, even if the “reason” is quite “odd”.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in any of the International Internet Standards that require any email client to ever provide bulk attachment operations (such as bulk saves) to their users.

So. Sure. That very tiny subset of email clients is not—technically—out of compliance with any such standard.

However. Nonetheless, it is strictly that very tiny subset of email clients that has this misbehavior.

One should always be allowed to correctly designate when all email attachments are of the same type. Such may even provide various efficiencies in the transfer and other handling of such emails.

This is my understanding, but am no export at all on MIME format.

Thank you for this contribution.

As I’ve already written, this does seem to provide a clue to a certain set of “workarounds”.

Unfortunately, it provides no clue to the “reasoning” behind the misbehavior of that very tiny subset of email clients.

However, it may provide a good “target” in trying to get the creator of that very tiny subset of email clients to correct this misbehavior.

Unfortunately, Rachel.H.U., you, like so many others, appear to be judging based only upon appearances, rather than actuality or functionality.

1. All files, that are any part of an email, are always attachments. There is simply no other choice! (This is as required by the International Internet Standards that govern email creation and interchange.)
2. Therefore, the only differences you are observing are purely appearance: the way the email is formatted and displayed by any given email client.
3. Now, if it were not for the very tiny subset of email clients that—for whatever reason, known only to their creator—prevent their users from performing bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves), under certain conditions (again, known fully only to their creator), there would never be any functionality issues, whatsoever!
4. As a result, the only actual fix is to get the creator of that very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of only a single email client and its derivatives, so far as anyone, within the Apple Support Communities, has been able to determine, so far), to fix this issue in their software.
5. Anything else will be an utterly fragile workaround, subject to breaking with any tiny change in the web of interactions involved in transferring emails. (This is, actually, the very reason this issue has ever popped up—whether with iOS 14, as well as with various previous iOS versions.)

OMG BTs2Cents - that worked! Thank you! I removed my signature & sent a test message with a photo & it came through as an attachment!

To APPLE: This is absolutely the most stupid change ever. Not being able to attach photos to messages completely removes the ability to share photos with friends & family and have them be able to save them if they want. Sometimes (no, often) I ask myself why do I use Apple products!

(I clicked reply to a Feb. 2nd answer from BTs2Cents, but it put my answer as a new one)

This quickly stopped working for me.

One way is to make a very short video (of nothing!!), say 1-2 secs. Then include this with your photos. They all go as attachments and you then discard the video.

Another way is to have a g-mail account and set this as you default sending address. As long as you send to a non-MS email account, again the photos go as attachments.

A bit silly really but these work.