Image attachment inline, Windows recipient

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Image attachment inline, Windows recipient

Attached images in Mail messages are sometimes interpreted by some recipients' email clients as inline images rather than as separate attachments. The problem manifests only sporadically and only with some Windows OS recipients. Several threads on this topic offer comment and cures but they seem inconsistantly effective at best.

I often wish I could advise the Windows recipient to change some setting to unembed/unlock the images. Here are some of the "cures" from other threads:

1. Mail is sent in RTF format may confuse Outlook or other Windows email clients. Cure: set Mail to Plain Text format and resend. This does not always work.
Question: Is there a setting in the recipients email client or system which can unlock/unembed the images?

2. Text between the images (eg file names as captions) often is the culprit. iPhoto, for example, inserts either text or line returns.
Cure: Eliminate text and spaces between attachments.
Questions: Anyone else have success by removing text between the attached images?
Anyone find that line returns or spaces between images causes inline behavior?

3. Load images into a folder and attach the folder rather than individual image(s). This is not always practical or effective. The folder is often interpreted by recipient as a ZIP folder. Many IT departments refuse ZIPs throughout their system (government systems esp). Or the recipients cannot open the "ZIP".
Question: Is there some Windows or Mac setting to make the folder appear to recipient as a normal folder rather than a ZIP?

4. In Mail, before sending, change all attached images to "View as Icon". I can't tell if this actually ever works. It seems sporadic at best.
Question: Anyone have success with this? Why would this display setting make any difference to recipient? Apple Mail recipients see it expanded rather than icon.

Thank you for your indulgence.

-B

MBP 17" 2.5GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.5), 4 GB RAM

Posted on Dec 12, 2010 2:03 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 4, 2011 12:33 PM in response to Benson Shaw

It's Outlook's fault. See the "Internet standards compliance" section in Wikipedia's article about Microsoft Outlook.

Outlook is simply incapable of rendering attachments that were created inline on a Mac as inline attachments. They and all subsequent text become attachments displayed in the header of the window displaying the email message. Evidently Outlook does not comply with the RFC 2183 specification and augmentation of the MIME standard. It simply ignores the line "Content-Disposition: inline;" which you can see, if you send a message with inline images to yourself and then, in Mail, go to View->Message->Raw Source.

Thunderbird doesn't have this problem. However, I think its rendering style of messages with inline attachments is visually less appealing as Apple Mail's.

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Answer 2

Benson Shaw Author

Level 1

90 points

Mar 14, 2011 10:01 PM in response to D. Hoffmann

Thanks, D Hoffmann - Apologies for not acknowledging sooner. I thought this was a dead thread, and did not check for a while. I read the Wiki re TNEF and RFC. Thanks for that, too.

Since posting my questions, I tried to make a fail by sending multiple emails to a friend using a recent version Windows Outlook. I tried every combo of things cited in other threads as cause of "inline" image. The attachments created in Safari always read as attachments in Outlook. Couldn't make them inline.

Maybe the the new Outlook versions have followed the spec? Or Safari revisions fixed it - I started the thread in 10.6.5 and now use 10.6.6. No recent fails.

Anyone else have definatives on this?

-B

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Answer 3

Mar 31, 2011 8:35 AM in response to D. Hoffmann

Hoffman, this issue is actually Apple Mail problem. Mail.app inadvertently sends all mail as plain text, even though the Mail format is set to Rich Text thereby rendering inline attachments incorrectly.

In order to render Mail.app inline attachments correctly when sending through an exchange server, one needs to include in the email body some formatted text. Even a simple bold’.'(dot) in the signature can do the trick. The whole idea is to force apple mail to send the the message as rich text instead of plain text. I hope this helps.

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Answer 4

Glibb

Level 1

0 points

Apr 12, 2011 12:05 AM in response to luandaotiato

FYI
This also occurs from and to Apple Mail.

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Answer 5

Apr 12, 2011 9:23 AM in response to luandaotiato

Unless there is something peculiar to some Exchange servers, this is nonsense. Plain Text is without exception in my experience the very best and preferred mode to compose and send messages to Windows recipients. When only a single font and color are used, it is not without justification that Mail converts to Plain Text -- because using RTF is typically where the trouble begins. That and not placing attachments at the end of the message.

Sorry to take such exception to your first ever post.

Ernie

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Answer 6

Apr 12, 2011 9:58 AM in response to Glibb

This issue is when Apple Mail sends through an Exchange server, therefore the receiving client does not matter. The attachement is processed by exchange as a regular attachment

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