Email photo as attachment, not embedded, in iOS 14

Really, TarHeelTech?

Why would you waste your time and my time on nothing but an appearance, a formatting of an email?

Did I not make this clear enough just from your written description?

This is not even admissible evidence in a court of Law.

Were you trying to fulfill the requirement I stated as:

«If, however, you could actually demonstrate that the emails authored by Apple Mail are not actually emails with attachments, but do something else, that is not consistent with the International Internet Standards that govern email creation and interchange; then you would have something to accuse Apple of.»

Do you actually think that you have provided the following?

«I do wish someone would actually try to invalidate my evidences. I’m a scientist. So that’s what we do: we work to invalidate hypotheses and theories!»

If so, you have completely neglected the context.

The hypothesis, if you will, is the following:

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.»

When I use the term attachment, in the context of emails, I am using the term commensurate to the International Internet Standards that govern email creation and interchange.

I am, most certainly, not referring to mere superficialities (appearances). Yet, you have addressed nothing but mere superficialities (appearances), and circumstantial evidence.

I thought I could expect better of you.

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.

An Update: I just read through a dozen pages and tried two of the workarounds and both worked.

1. First way - If you send a small video file with your photos, all will show up as attachments. Yay!
2. Second way - If you use a browser to access your hotmail/outlook account (instead of the mail app), it will send all photos as attachments the way it used to be.

Apple decided to make this change in IOS 14 that stops people from being able to send photos as attachments. I have no clue why the company made this change. But this is why we're hoping everyone will bombard Apple with complaints, asking it to reverse this change.

In the meantime, I've found two workarounds:

1. First way - If you send a small video file with your photos, all will show up as attachments. Yay!
2. Second way - If you use a browser to access your hotmail/outlook account (instead of the mail app), it will send all photos as attachments the way it used to be.

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.)

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.)

Lotus9999:

I have always recognized, and usually acknowledged, that there are two sorts of issues:

1. One is the pure issue of appearances. However, if the only thing someone is concerned about is «appearance»—even if one considers such to be a usability/«functionality» issue—then their path is quite clear: they can:
   1. Choose an email client that provides the ability to produce whatever «appearance» they desire.
   2. Provide Apple with Feedback on what email formatting features they desire.
2. The other goes beyond pure appearances, and, ultimately, is an issue of functionality, that is not just appearance based: this issue has been narrowed down to the very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of email clients all programmed by one company: not Apple) that prevent their users from performing bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves), under certain conditions only fully known by their programmers. (We have but certain clues.)
   1. So long as those email clients are not corrected, all one can ever have are fragile workarounds, subject to being easily broken by any tiny changes in the web of interactions involved in transferring emails.

The course one should take depends upon which category of issue you consider needs attention.

Choose accordingly.

Welcome, snowmelt, to Apple Support Communities!

In both cases «the photo[s] will be attached.» There simply is no other way.

The only thing that changes is the «formatting».

There are two sorts of issues:

1. One is the pure issue of appearances. However, if the only thing someone is concerned about is «appearance»—even if one considers such to be a usability/«functionality» issue—then their path is quite clear: they can:
   1. Choose an email client that provides the ability to produce whatever «appearance» they desire.
   2. Provide Apple with Feedback on what email formatting features they desire.
2. The other goes beyond pure appearances, and, ultimately, is an issue of functionality, that is not just appearance based: this issue has been narrowed down to the very tiny subset of email clients (consisting of email clients all programmed by one company: not Apple) that prevent their users from performing bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves), under certain conditions only fully known by their programmers. (We have but certain clues.)
   1. So long as those email clients are not corrected, all one can ever have are fragile workarounds, subject to being easily broken by any tiny changes in the web of interactions involved in transferring emails.

The course one should take depends upon which category of issue you consider needs attention.

Yes, there are two workarounds that I've found worked:

1. First way - If you send a small video file with your photos, all will show up as attachments.
2. Second way - If you use a browser to access your hotmail/outlook account (instead of the mail app), it will send all photos as attachments the way it used to be.

Also, we've been urging everyone to send a message to Apple asking them to reverse the change they made in IOS 14 that affected the mail app.

CJCragg wrote:

What’s with the subset stuff.

My Apple mail worked fine until IOS 14. Then all of a sudden it stopped attaching multiple photos and embedded them instead. The mail client never changed, nor did the Outlook in the computer where I sent the photos. Something went away with IOS 14. Final answer.

With months worth of research, by many experienced users, here on Apple Support Communities, it was found that:

1. Images/pictures/etc. continue to be included as attachments, as required by the International Internet Standards governing email creation and interchange, by Apple Mail. There is no such thing as «embedded» forms. (The closest thing is that such may be formatted such that images/pictures may appear inline with text and other email components.)
2. Only Outlook, and its derivatives, have any problem allowing its users the ability to perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves) under some set of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions. This has been true at least since 2010.
   1. (Rather than always referring to Outlook and its derivatives, I have been alluding to such simply as the very tiny subset of email clients that exhibit this particular issue.)
3. Under a small subset of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions, this very tiny subset of email clients may actually recognize the attached files and allow users to, then, perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves).
   1. This is the reason why there have been some (few) times when the emails created by Apple Mail have been properly handled by that very tiny subset of email clients. (Such has broken many times, even well before iOS 14.)
   2. Unfortunately, since this subset of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions is both small and known only to its creators (Microsoft), such leads to a far too fragile “workaround” for the sake of such a very tiny subset of email clients.

If all the people experiencing this issue would provide Feedback to the creators of that very tiny subset of email clients, we may, finally, have these email clients working properly with all other International Internet Standards’ compliant email clients (including Apple Mail).

(After all, not having their standards’ compliance updated since 2010, or earlier, it would seem the time is long past for a standards’ compliance update/upgrade.)

Welcome, Coatsy35, to Apple Support Communities!

Have you read much of the 57 pages of this Discussion?

With months worth of research, by many experienced users, here on Apple Support Communities, it was found that:

1. Images/pictures/etc. continue to be included as attachments, as required by the International Internet Standards governing email creation and interchange, by Apple Mail. There is no such thing as «embedded» forms. (The closest thing is that such may be formatted such that images/pictures may appear inline with text and other email components.)
2. Only Outlook, and its derivatives, have any problem allowing its users the ability to perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves) under some set of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions. This has been true at least since 2010.
   1. (Rather than always referring to Outlook and its derivatives, I have been alluding to such simply as the very tiny subset of email clients that exhibit this particular issue.)
3. Under a small subset of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions, this very tiny subset of email clients may actually recognize the attached files and allow users to, then, perform bulk attachment operations (such as bulk-saves).
   1. This is the reason why there have been some (few) times when the emails created by Apple Mail have been properly handled by that very tiny subset of email clients. (Such has broken many times, even well before iOS 14.)
   2. Unfortunately, since this subset of International Internet Standards’ compliant conditions is both small and known only to its creators (Microsoft), such leads to a far too fragile “workaround” for the sake of such a very tiny subset of email clients.

If all the people experiencing this issue would provide Feedback to the creators of that very tiny subset of email clients, we may, finally, have these email clients working properly with all other International Internet Standards’ compliant email clients (including Apple Mail).

(After all, not having their standards’ compliance updated since 2010, or earlier, it would seem the time is long past for a standards’ compliance update/upgrade.)

Minashiro wrote:

I honestly don’t get it. The value of your posts in this thread (yes, I’ve read all of it previously) have been consistently in the negative: instead of trying to help people out, or giving just useless advice that doesn’t work, you actively derail the conversation into completely unrelated direction. Guess I’ll never understand why people get a kick out of such behavior.

1. All photos sent in email are sent as attachments, regardless of the device or app sending them. ALL PHOTOS ARE ATTACHMENTS.
2. Some email clients that receive emails choose to display them inline (which is OK), with no way to detach them as a group (which is bad design), in violation of international standards. Apple has no control over how badly designed email clients manage received photos sent by Apple devices that conform to standards.

The correct solution is to use only email clients that receive messages correctly according to those standards.

The workaround that I was able to use is:

1. Go into Photos
2. Select the photos you want to attach
3. Select the send button (like you were going to in a message)
4. Scroll down and select ‘Save to files’
5. Once saved, go to your email and select ‘Attach files’
6. Select the photos you just saved.

Sorry, I must have missed the post with the helpful long-term advice. The ones I saw could be summarised as: a) use the correct terminology; b) this is not the right place to complain; c) it's not an issue that is caused by Apple; d) everything will be solved if you stop trying to do what you want to do, and have done successfully in the past, accept your fate and do something less convenient; e) you are all dinosaurs who need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

I can see that it is very convenient to blame the email client, but since the problem seems to exist for many different email clients, and until recently didn't exist for all those clients, Occam's razor suggests that the problem stems from a change Apple has instituted, rather than one all those different email clients made simultaneously.

Both parts of the problem (the display and the inability to do bulk downloads) are annoying, and no, I don't believe my email client is doing anything differently than it did before.

Finally, I just did yet another little test. I sent some photos from the mail app native to my iPhone, and opened the email in the mail app on my Mac (the annoying piece of crop pictured below) and still the problem persisted.