View attachment as icon gone?

@Mitch Amechi

that worked for me - thanks! The "view as icon" menu item had disappeared, I think after a powercut and failure of Mountain Lion during restart. So a gremlin in the works - but swapping to plain text and then back to rich text sorted it out.

I tried the suggestions listed and none work for me. I too was able to select view as icon, but cant anymore.

Thanks! This fixed the problem for me.

What is wrong with Apple these days? More and more basic functionality is being removed, simple useful stuff like being able to switch between an inline preview and an icon. The new mini-player is another example, where appearence is more important than functionality. Thankfully it is still adjustable under the hood but why take it out of the GUI in the first place?

Hey Apple design exec's: stop taking away user choice when it comes to how our Apples work! Your idea of what is best for everybody is not actually always best for everybody. Sheesh.

I had this exact same problem -- the "View as Icon" was no longer in the contexual menu. Switching off RTF, and switching it back on, displayed as an icon.

Rebooted.

Now the "View as Icon" is back. Cool.... And I noticed the paperclip icon to attach a file is on the left top of the compose window, rather than the right top. I'm running Lion 10.8.4.

Something very strange is going on.....

Applications/Utilities/Terminal - the below Terminal command will create icons instead of in-line. I suggest you copy and past the command to avoid errors.

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool YES

I am a novice at any sort of computer technicalities . . . but THANK YOU ERIC ROOT for your thoughts on this. this worked completely. i appreciate how you said to exactly where to go and what to do as i've never done this before.

but it worked. thanks!!

Glad to help.

Thanks Eric. This was very helpful. How do you reverse it if needed when attaching pictures.

Figured it out.

The only issue with this is that if you have any images such as your company logo...etc as part of your signature, It will no longer appear as the image. It will appear as an icon.

I have tested 'view as icon' by sending email attachment to myself, and altho it shows as an icon in the email I am composing, pdfs & jpegs appear as "view in place" in the recipients mail. (MSOffice appears as icons).

My concern is that many recipients don't know that the images in their emails are attachments and can or supposed to be saved to their computerfor other use.

Horror of Horrors, not everyone I communicate with has Mac or uses MacMail.

Interestingly, when composing, jpeg and png (maybe other formats too) attachents can be adjusted to "small-medium-large-actual size in a small drop down menu to right, just above the message composing area, but this will also change the the dpi of the received jpeg ( Size of 300 dpi jpeg sent at "small" is received at 72 dpi)

You now have to highlight the document(basically left click on the document/attachment). Next, hold down the control button on your keyboard and left click your mouse simultaneously. The same drop down list will show up and view as icon is one of those options. Left click "view as icon".

What used to be a right click one step process is now a two step left click process for some reason??? Not sure how this simplified the process....

Good luck!

JLCSC wrote:

You now have to highlight the document(basically left click on the document/attachment). Next, hold down the control button on your keyboard and left click your mouse simultaneously.

Ctrl-click is the default behavior that pops up a contextual menu. You can map that to the right mouse button (secondary click) as an option.

Mail had a bug in Yosemite that prevented secondary click from registering. It is perhaps still a problem in ML, but I can't replicate the problem on my El Capitan system.