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Apple Mail Signature images loading as Question Marks after updates on desktop and iOS

Looking into an email Signature issue with apple mail thats has always worked.

I Have seen a few other posts looking into 3rd party programs conflicting which I will look into and This seems to have started after Monteray update.

this is an html signature, Images are all hosted online and have not been moved.

The signature works properly through a browser and outside apple mail just not through apple mail after Monterey or iOS after it's update to ios15.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 27, 2021 3:15 PM

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Question marked as Best answer

Well you can always just use both, try this:


<a href="https://mywebsite.com" title="Visit my website" style='
color: transparent;
width: 600px;
height: 150px;
display: inline-block;
background:#fff7dd;
background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,xxx"), url("https://urltomyimage.jpg");
background-size: cover;
'>invisible text for screen readers, like your name</a>


You'll need to hard code the image size. The background color is for in case both images fail so you at least see a box, (since you can't use alt here). Title is shown when you hover the image, is good for accessibility too.


I recommend to make the actual image double the size of what you enter here so it looks sharp on retina displays. So 1200x300 in this case. Consider using svg to save space.

Posted on Dec 5, 2021 2:42 AM

Similar questions

55 replies

Dec 16, 2021 5:00 PM in response to polishlady2008

Be sure you are looking in your User Library and not your system "Library" for your mail & signatures. The version number of your mail may not always be V2 as well. If you have several the latest version installed will be the largest number mine s V9 currently but that doesn't mean yours should be necessarily.

in finder top bar menu go to "Go" hold down option key to access library > Mail > you will see your version options.


An update to Monterey was released a few days ago. it fixed my trackpad being annoying but nothing else. Mail and iCloud still a mess.


Jan 10, 2022 2:53 PM in response to Janneman84

Thank you for this. This seems to have solved the issue for me. since there is still no patch from Apple I'm going to go ahead and mark this as the solution for anyone else tying to land on it.

I did use both the image url and base 64 url as in this example and that seems to get the signature to work in apple mail, gmail an outlook as well.

Appreciate everyone's contributions.

Jan 19, 2022 12:10 PM in response to Janneman84

Thanks for sharing this work around, Janneman84. I was really excited about trying this but unfortunately, it didn't work for me. I might have done something wrong. All I get is a white empty space. The background color doesn't even show. Here my code:


<a href="http://www.migratesound.com" title="Check Out Our Website" style='
color: transparent;
width: 240px;
height: 60px;
display: inline-block;
background: #fff7dd;
background-image: url("data:image/png;base64,aHR0cDovL3d3dy5taWdyYXRlZGVzaWduLmNvbS9lbWFpbHNpZ25hdHVyZWltYWdlcy9NaWdyYXRlU291bmRMb2dvLnBuZw=="), url("http://www.migratedesign.com/emailsignatureimages/MigrateSoundLogo.png");
background-size: cover;
'>Migrate Sound</a>


Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!


Thx.

Jan 19, 2022 2:20 PM in response to GFIVE

There is a zero width space (0xfeff) character in front of background and background-image. You can see these aren't purple like the others. Once removed it works fine. You can't really see them but if you move the cursor with the left/right arrow keys you'll notice it gets stuck and you need to press twice to advance once.


Your base64 url is not right though, way too short. Try pasting the url directly into the address bar to test if it works.


In some mail clients both logos will work and show on top of each other. Since yours has transparancy it may look a bit different then. You might want to give the image a solid background color.

Jan 20, 2022 12:02 AM in response to GFIVE

The issue of this topic is that images from http urls in signatures don't work in Apple Mail, so that's why we use base64. In other clients like G-mail these base64 urls don't work so we also add a http url on top of it (which does work unlike in Apple Mail).


So the image is both referenced ánd embedded (as base64 string) for compatibility.

Jan 21, 2022 3:31 PM in response to thecrapple

I have found another little Gem in this. The Base 64code for an image is very long. if you are like me and used 3 images ( company logo, 2 social icons) the resulting code was "too long" to paste into gmails signature setting. Some of my coworkers don't use the apple mail client at all. However the issue of the images not showing in apple mail is the problem for everyone so this code needs to go everywhere including in gmail.

Just an issue to know about if you are on a Gmail client, and i assume outlook as well if gmail takes issue with it.

Annoying since the problem is still really only an apple mail issue that they simply have not patched.

Jan 25, 2022 12:54 PM in response to thecrapple

Ok All, so what I ended up doing that now works using the same html for a signature in apple mail, gmail and outlook clients is simply use dropbox to host the images.

Base 64 code was unfortunately too long for gmail to use as a signature.

hosted images on hostmonster, iPage, or 1and1 didn't work but dropbox did.

created the share link and replaced the "dl=0" at the end for "raw=1".





Apple Mail Signature images loading as Question Marks after updates on desktop and iOS

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