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687patrickm Author

Level 1

6 points

Attachements in Mail

Hello, When I join a file to attach to an e-mail, it never appears as an attachement but in the body of the mail (in the text). How can I do to have it sent as an attachement and not appearing in the body of the mail ? Thanks for any help.

iMac 24", Mac OS X (10.6.4), iphone 4 32gb, Ipad 32gb, Mac book air,Time capsule, Apple TV..

Posted on Jan 24, 2011 9:42 PM

Top-ranking reply

Camelot

Level 9

55,335 points

Posted on Jan 24, 2011 10:15 PM

What you're seeing is an artifact of Mail.app, so don't sweat it.

When you add an attachment, Mail.app looks to see if it understands the file format as something it can display (such as an image file). If it can, it renders the attachment in the message so you can see it.

However, other mail readers may or may not behave the same. You cannot predict how it will appear since you don't necessarily know which mail client the recipient will be using - they may use a client that renders images inline, or one that shows them as links in the header or footer.

If it truly bothers you, compress the attachments into a .zip archive. Mail.app won't bother decompressing the contents to try and display them, so they'll always appear as a link.

View in context

40 replies

Jan 31, 2011 4:15 PM in response to i2

You wrote: "If you are encountering specific problems with sending email to a PC or have any questions or complaints, why don't you pass them on to the author of Iconizer". I have not had problems sending to recipients using PCs, and I have never found the need to explore using Mail Iconizer. I do nicely sending in Plain Text and placing all attachments last in the message.

I am simply saying that Iconizer does not do what you have claimed it does, nor does it do what I believe the developer says it does in the whole. It clearly has some specialized but limited benefit. If it is doing what you want it to do when your messages are received by associates you have using PCs, then that is great. But do not judge it by what you see on your Mac, in Mail, having installed it on your system. It must be judged by what your recipients see.

Furthermore I am confident its does not send attachments that prevent Mail and other email clients (notably Thunderbird) from having them View in Place.

I would love for the developer to join this discussion. For the take of others with substantial experience on this issue see:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13014270#13014270

Obviously I am not the only one with a low opinion of Outlook and Outlook Express. I do think some of them like what Iconizer does, at least in theory

Ernie

kk74974

Level 1

11 points

Mar 24, 2011 3:48 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Well, I did have the same problem: When I send attachments (jpeg, tiff, etc,) my email recipient wasn't unable to download the attachment as an attachment itself (I tried with gmail and hotmail as recipients clients), so I use Ernie's advice to convert the message into Plain Text and the hotmail recipient did receive the attachment as an attachment,
So thank you Ernie!

Mar 27, 2011 12:50 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Hi, I'm the developer of Mail Attachments Iconizer (now Attachment Tamer).

I probably shouldn't say this, but Ernie is right: here's how exactly you can reliably avoid this issue without using my software:

1. In Mail's Composing preferences, set your *Message Format* to *Plain Text*, and turn off the *Use the same message format as the original message* option.

2. Make sure that you are not editing a message. Choose *Edit > Attachments > Always Insert Attachments at End of Message*. (Mail will remember this option.)

3. Make sure that your signature does not contain any images.

4. When forwarding an email with attachments (or replying if you have configured Mail to include attachments in replies), manually delete all attachments or move them to the end of message before sending. The option from step 2 doesn't apply to replying and forwarding. (Even if attachments are at the end in the original message and you do not use a signature, Mail will insert one extra new line below these attachments that will cause problems.)

With this workaround, you can't use text formatting or embed images (your messages are plain text) and you still need to adjust each messages manually when forwarding attachments. It's a kind of caveman method to solve the problem, but I also used to do it this way: for someone who's fine with plain text and doesn't forward messages often, it works alright.

Mar 28, 2011 11:05 AM in response to Nepse

Just where in Preferences do you find "Always View as Icons"? I show no such option in Mail, Preferences.

Mar 28, 2011 11:32 AM in response to 7.7Golfer

The "Always View as Icons" options mentioned by Nepse are part of the preferences of Attachment Tamer (former Mail Attachments Iconizer). They're not available in Apple Mail without the plug-in.

It's also worth noting that this thread discusses two different issues:

*1. How attachments are displayed in Apple Mail (either as icons or in place):* Mail always displayes images, one-page PDFs (and under some circumstances other attachments) in place, i.e. directly in the message's body, whether you're composing or viewing a message. You can change that for individual attachments by right-clicking them and choosing "View in Place/as Icon", but this is neither permanent nor does it have any effect on how the attachments are sent. Some people like it, some don't.

*2. How attachments are sent by Apple Mail and then displayed in Microsoft Outlook and other software:* To make a long story short: it's a mess unless you either follow Ernie's recommendations (I've tried to describe it in more details in the previous post) or use Attachment Tamer.

Jan 27, 2012 3:30 PM in response to Adam Nohejl

Actually, Adam, I have to contradict you. I have been testing many many permutations of settings trying to send a photo from Apple Mail that will appear as a real attachment in the Gmail web client. And by "real attachment" I mean it appears with a paper clip icon in the inbox and shows the "view" and "download" options next to a thumbnail along with the name.

And the results are that the ONLY way to get this to happen, is to have Attachment Tamer installed, and make sure it's a plain text message with the image viewed as an icon in the Compose window of Apple Mail. It makes no sense to me, but there it is. There is, in my experience, no other way to get Gmail to see an image as an attachment. You MUST have Attachement Tamer installed. I don't know if this is something new in Lion or not, because I was under the impression that sending as Plain Text did the trick in the past. And following all of Ernie's advice had no effect.

In any case, Thank you for developing Attachment Tamer, Adam. Apple seems incapable of testing against other email clients/ web clients.

Speeddog

Level 1

0 points

Feb 2, 2012 4:19 PM in response to 687patrickm

Try the information in this link....it seemed to work like a charm!

http://micahgilman.com/play/disable-mac-mailapp-inline-image-attachments/

luis144

Level 1

6 points

Oct 8, 2012 12:03 PM in response to 687patrickm

Try this:

Open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes

That will make every attachment you send act like an attachment instead of a pretty unusable decoration.

If you decide this isn’t what you’re looking for, to restore inline attachment viewing type:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool false

Restart Mail and you’re back to normal.

from:

http://thedailyupload.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-make-mailapp-stop-posting-inli ne.html

jasimon9

Level 1

4 points

Mar 14, 2013 4:56 PM in response to Adam Nohejl

After 3 plus years of suffering with having to turn off that setting for all email ("Always Insert Attachments at End of Message"), I finally got the answer from Adam Nohejl !

I had searched in the past for this but never found anything, and gave up, until today. As is sometimes the case in these situations, it is too simple to see the solution.

So turn off "Always Insert Attachments at End of Message" while not editing and it stays off. How simple could you get? Doh!

gkachen

Level 1

4 points

May 5, 2014 2:30 PM in response to Adam Nohejl

Adam Nohejl and all others from several years ago. Thanks for your comments. But as a new convert to iMac and Apple, I am absoutely amazed that Apple has not solved this problem. I still have my PC, and when I compose a MSW document, I have figurs, formatting etc in it--I do NOT want to lose all of that when send a word attahment. And BTW, I would be sending it to Mac AND PC users--so DO NOT want to send in Plain Text.

Hasn't Apple worked this out yet? Should I change my Mac mail from Mail to Microsoft Office?

Thanks

George

Attachements in Mail