embedded attachments

[skd]

I'm having trouble sending jpeg attachments to window users. They say the attachment is embedded and they can't download the attachment. Another mac user told me to, when in mail, go to format and click 'make plain text'. Can someone explain to me what's going on and what is the difference between 'plain text' and 'rich text'?
thanks

[dogbone]

if you use the 'attach' button you will get a checkbox at the bottom of the dialogue box to "use window friendly attachments".

[skd]

in the past i have check the box for window friendly attachments, but the jpegs were still embedded in the text. Does someone knows the difference between 'plain text' and 'rich text' and which one does the mac default to?

[dogbone]

.rtf can take more formatting than a plain .txt file

It would appear that you are embedding a jpeg in a rich text document and sending the the rtf, is this correct? If this is the case why not just send the jpg without embedding it into a rtf file.

[skd]

"If this is the case why not just send the jpg without embedding it into a rtf file."
how do i do that? i don't understand what your saying re "without embedding it into a rtf file"
thnx

[IJ Reilly]

You need to describe your problem more fully. What does the recipient see, exactly?

I don't think your problem is plain text vs. rich text. Either should work.

Does your jpeg have a file extension?

FWIW, sending "Windows friendly attachments" can be made the default behavior under the Edit/Attachments menu in Mail.

[dogbone]

"If this is the case why not just send the jpg without embedding it into a rtf file."
how do i do that? i don't understand what your saying re "without embedding it into a rtf file"
thnx

Well I'm not sure you are embedding the jpg into an rtf file I'm just trying to make some sense of what you are saying.

To send a jpg you can just drag the file into the email composing window.

[skd]

well dogbone, and to me it funny because as a hobby I'm a dog breeder, this is what I hear. I'm an architect, and when responding to clients, I send them jpegs or PDF's of drawings or 3D model. My clients want to download the files in order to print them out and they are not able to do that. The attachments are embedded into the text. I did notice that my default was to rich text - I've changed that to plain text - and will be sending some file later tonight - and see if that helps. Now, when I take the files to bootcamp, and send thru windows - no problem.

[IJ Reilly]

Plain text vs. Rich text will not make any difference. You can attach files to either type of e-mail.

I'd like to help you solve this problem, but that's tough if you can't describe more precisely what recipients of your e-mails are seeing. Are they getting blocks of indecipherable text? Are they seeing an image at all? This is important information.

[cj mitchell]

i was having the same issue with attached jpegs being received by my pc friends as embedded images. clicking "window's friendly" did not help. having it show as an icon did not work. i finally thought to save the file as an archive (zip it) before attaching - THAT worked.

[vanmacguy]

Plain text vs. Rich text will not make any difference. You can attach files to either type of e-mail.

I'd like to help you solve this problem, but that's tough if you can't describe more precisely what recipients of your e-mails are seeing. Are they getting blocks of indecipherable text? Are they seeing an image at all? This is important information.

I have experienced the same problem so let me take a crack at describing it.

Lets say I want to send a jpeg to my Mum, of my kids. I create an email using mail.app, and drag the picture into the email (or I use the add attachment feature). what I see is that the jpeg is now fully visible in the body of the email, whereas what I wanted to see was just an icon representing that picture (as it does in Windoze).

When my Mum receives the email and opens it, she sees the image in the body of the email, rather than an icon representing the image. So my Mum, not being very computer literate doesn't know how to deal with this. If she had an icon, she would click and save it, then open it. But the important thing is that she'd have saved it somewhere. If it's embedded in the email, and she wants to show someone or print it, she has to open the email or print the email.

So I would like the ability (or to know how to if the ability already exists) to add the jpeg as an icon and not have it embedded in the body of the email.

Cheers.

[IJ Reilly]

The way the file displays in Apple Mail (in-place or icon) should not have an effect on the way it is displayed to the recipient. BTW, you can change this for any given attachment by control-clicking on the in-place image and selecting "view as icon" from the pop-up menu. But again, this should not make any difference to the recipient -- their mail client will decide how this attachment will be displayed. Apple Mail should include a preference to set how attachments are displayed -- personally, I'd set my default as icon view -- but sadly it doesn't.

I have heard, but I don't know if it's true, that Mail will sometimes corrupt attachments that aren't inserted at the very end of the e-mail. If anyone can confirm this, I'd be very interested to know.

[4JNA]

as long as the image is being shown in the email, the windows recipient should be able to 'right-click' the image (embedded or not) and 'view image' or 'save image' or ?

sounds like windows PEBCAC to me.

[catachip]

I see this problem a lot when sending images to people using Yahoo webmail. When viewed online the picture is embedded into the text of the message - the yahoo mail doesn't even indicate that the file has an attachment, so they can't save anything. Then, if you even try to right click on the image you can just save it as a bitmap.

I am not sure what the issue is. If I send a picture with some other files, i.e. word documents, then it will show as separate attachments, but on it's own, the pictures are embedded. Checking or unchecking windows friendly makes no difference. This is OS X Leopard's Mail.

[ehargett]

I'll be very interested in seeing how to fix this problem, as well. Having JPEG, and photos in general embed into the body of the email is a real PITA, IMO. My scanned files even scanned to PDF do the exact same thing. I know, I know, the recipient can right-click the image and save the image, file, whatever, but I'm dealing with grandparents, and other not-so-computer-literate people who would like the "ease" of just have an attachment as an "attachment" rather than embedded in the email body..

[IJ Reilly]

I'll be very interested in seeing how to fix this problem, as well.

I have heard, but I don't know if it's true, that Mail will sometimes corrupt attachments that aren't inserted at the very end of the e-mail. If anyone can confirm this, I'd be very interested to know.

Can you confirm? Try it both ways and see what happens.

[soms]

This is pretty puzzling to me, because I have always dragged the image into the form of the email and I've never had trouble with windows users. On my mothers laptop when she gets a message with a picture in it from me, it shows both the image in the form, as well as the little icon in the upper corner of the email.

[ehargett]

This is pretty puzzling to me, because I have always dragged the image into the form of the email and I've never had trouble with windows users.


:)... The issue I have is with the picture "blowing up" to fill the email screen when it is sent. When I drag the pic into the email, it looks fine... however, the sender gets this INCREDIBLY ENLARGED version of the picture. :eek: So they can't view it in the email but "have" to save it somewhere to view it properly. My MIL had no idea what to do with the pictures until I came over and saved them to her desktop, then re-opened for her.
And with the scanned PDFs I had to send, I did not want them in the body of the email, I wanted them as attachments. As part if the email body, they just cluttered it up.
It all worked out, but it was frustrating, and thought there should be a way to set preferences on this, yk?

[IJ Reilly]

The images don't "blow up." The sender doesn't have any control over how the recipient's e-mail client displays attachments, so they need to figure out what's happening on their end. And there's no actual difference between sending files as "attachments" or "in the body of the e-mail." I wish Apple Mail had a preference setting for viewing attachments in-line or as an icon, but this doesn't have any bearing on how the recipient sees them anyway.

[buckeye81]

I read this whole thread. Kind of humorous that what seems so plain to me is not clear to others. I can confirm that the original description of this problem is indeed a problem. I am a 20+ year PC user, recently converted to iMac and the compatibility issues abound. In this case, I too am frustrated that I click on ATTACH when I'm in the mail program on my iMac (Leopard) and sometimes the attachment is shown as an icon, sometimes as an imbedded picture. Both situations are frustrating ... I just want them attached as files like on the PC, not stuck in the middle of what I'm writing. Well, recently when I sent some large pictures to my work computer (PC) they come in to Outlook as imbedded pictures. I click on SAVE ATTACHMENTS and nothing happens. No prompt for a file location. NOTHING. I'm just about ready to put them on a thumb drive and hand carry them to work. But this won't work to send to my sister in CA...(I suppose I could mail her the thumb drive...we are in the 21st century aren't we?).

[IJ Reilly]

As I said above, you might want to find out why Outlook is treating these images as "embedded pictures" instead of as attachments, since Apple Mail is treating them as attachments whether they are viewed in-line or as icons when sent. I also suggested that you make certain that the attachments are located at the very end of the e-mail, and see if that helps.

[cj mitchell]

it's an extra step - but zipping those files before attaching them should save you from driving that thumb drive over. it's something about that ".jpg" extention (at least for me) that kept causing attached jpegs to be received as embedded files. didn't happen with other attached files (i.e. tif, eps, pdf, etc.)

[Mac In School]

Same thing happens to me when I send PDF files. Most savvy users have no problem with them, but I too would like to see them displayed as icons.

[cj mitchell]

if you right click or option click the image, you should be able to select "view as icon"

[Mac In School]

^ My hero.

[IJ Reilly]

if you right click or option click the image, you should be able to select "view as icon"

^ My hero.

This had already been said. It has also been mentioned that this has no effect on how the recipient sees the attachment.

[Mac In School]

Oh. :(

[Shlomit]

Hi all,
I have decided to make a deep search for the "Mac recipients gets the picture embed in the body email" and to my surprise there is no reasonable solution.
I can't believe that in 2009 there are still Mac-Windows issues which I find frustrating.
I don't want to zip my files before sending them and I do want to send RTF emails and I don't see why my windows users are getting my jpgs embed in the body of the email.
I don't want to have a workaround.
I want to keep on sending jpgs, to make them smaller if i want and that pc users would be able to save the attachments.
through what i read here, there is only workaround which tells me once again that mac-pc is still an issue on really basic stuff.
what do you think?
I found it a bit annoying.
have a nice day :),
shlomit

[IJ Reilly]

Perhaps there's no Mac solution because it's not a Mac problem. This has got to be something to do with the settings in Outlook, since it's not really possible to send attachments "in the body of the e-mail." They are just attachments, no matter what you do.

[Mac In School]

Perception is reality. It's like the proud parent that brags about their son being the only kid in the marching band who turned the right direction, even though the rest of the band turned in the wrong direction with perfect precision and uniformity. Little Johnny may have been "right", but he was ineffective, and looked WRONG to the rest of the world.

I agree with Shlomit. As a Mac user in a Windows world, I want to make it as easy for them to work with me, as it is for them to work with other Windows users... Regardless of whose "problem" it is.

[IJ Reilly]

FWIW, I have never encountered this problem, though I have had Windows users send me e-mails with mime attachments. You know, sometimes it is operator error, and not something someone else can fix.

[theLimit]

JPEG attachments work correctly for me when sending to Yahoo and Hotmail accounts. They show in the body of the email and have a download link.

[Wikinerd]

in the past i have check the box for window friendly attachments, but the jpegs were still embedded in the text. Does someone knows the difference between 'plain text' and 'rich text' and which one does the mac default to?

Just to answer this specific question. Plain text does not have any formatting; it's just plain old ASCII (if I'm correct)..

Rich text is basic formatted text; colors, fonts, etc.

If you're using Textedit or Mail it tends to default to rich text

[cj mitchell]

i too am still having to zip jpegs before sending them to half of my PC recipients. this wasn't an issue at all prior to the mac quad pro i'm now using (10.4.11). been a mac user since before this emailing thing came about and this was never an issue before. clicking "windows friendly" doesn't help. any real solutions out there? or does the last OS solve this?

[IJ Reilly]

Near the start of this thread, I suggested that those who are having this problem try making certain that the attachment is added to the very end of the e-mail (no text after). Apparently nobody was willing to try this.

[Wikinerd]

Hi all,
I have decided to make a deep search for the "Mac recipients gets the picture embed in the body email" and to my surprise there is no reasonable solution.
I can't believe that in 2009 there are still Mac-Windows issues which I find frustrating.
I don't want to zip my files before sending them and I do want to send RTF emails and I don't see why my windows users are getting my jpgs embed in the body of the email.
I don't want to have a workaround.
I want to keep on sending jpgs, to make them smaller if i want and that pc users would be able to save the attachments.
through what i read here, there is only workaround which tells me once again that mac-pc is still an issue on really basic stuff.
what do you think?
I found it a bit annoying.
have a nice day :),
shlomit

Sounds like it's more of an Outlook thing...
(Microsoft is infamous of not being compatible with industry standards)

[cj mitchell]

was more than willing to place the jpeg at the end of the text in the email. same results. was received embedded.

[IJ Reilly]

was more than willing to place the jpeg at the end of the text in the email. same results. was received embedded.

Well at least we know somebody tried. I am still uncertain what is meant by "embedded." If an e-mail with a jpeg attachment is received in Apple Mail (for example), it may look like it's "embedded" because by default it displays in-line with the text of the e-mail. But it's still an attachment. If someone is reporting that they've received an e-mail from you with the jpeg "embedded" in the e-mail, it might be because they don't know that it's really an attachment. I don't know how Outlook parses attachments, but it might be worth finding out if it's got settings that affect how they are displayed.

[MacBoobsPro]

From what I have read (and experienced) it seems it is not a Mac/Mail problem as people are stating that 'some' recipients can't use the files while others can which says to me it is the recipients problem.

[cj mitchell]

i would have blamed (and probably did) the recipients but realized that this was not an issue before i upgraded computers. they can view the jpeg images in their email messages but cannot open or save them. this happens with about 30% of my PC recipients but had not been an issue before. however, when they send the message back to me i get it as an attachment. so i'm not sure where the problem lies.: confused:

[ehargett]

I know it's a "work around", but recipients should be able to right click on the attachment and choose "save as". They might not be able to view it properly in the email, but they can see it from their desktop (or wherever they saved it.)

this is what I've done, and so far it's worked.

All the best,
Elizabeth:)

[IJ Reilly]

To me it's pretty clear the problem is with Outlook, particularly if they can forward the mail back to you, and you see the jpeg as an attachment. Also, from Mac Help:

If a recipient is using Mail or another email application that retains the order of the contents of your message, the recipient sees the attachment in the same location where you inserted it. You can select Edit > Attachments > “Always Insert Attachments at End of Message” to automatically have attachments inserted at the end, which may help Windows recipients.

[diburrup]

The only workaround I've found is to put the attachments inside a folder and send the folder, even if it is just one file. Then they come in as real attachments. Just thought I would share...

[mahuska]

We have been having a problem with this for years. So today we found a work around that lets you keep HTML formatting the Mac user able to add images to the email in any way they are comfortable and still have windows computers see the images as attachments. Use a signature and put in the signature a bit map. It can be very small and the color of the page. we found that only a few type of file are automatically "embedded", specifically JPG's so if you add any other files in with the jpgs to an email, all additions show up the the windows user as attachments.


The curious behavior is that
there is not an issue with thunder bird
this reacts differently depending on the email server you use IE; Mail Trust, Yahoo SMTP, Gmail SMTP
this might act differently on the email account type such as POP or IMAP, although to be fair we didn't go back and double check those differences be cause we ahad found our solution and are tired of messing with it

[outmyhead]

for a while now i've had the problem of sending image attachments to work colleagues and the images being embedded. I have the only mac in the office, the rest are on PCs (which is also not doing wonders for the Mac's rep!). Most of the time when i send an image to anyone else it is embedded into the body of the email, meaning that when they receive it in outlook they cannot save it, only copy, which is not what we want. Anyway, to cut a long story short, what i found was that in all of the emails that didn't send the images as attachments my signature was also present. Mail.app was converting the entire message to a html email any time that my signature was present, so the images were then treated as part of the html email (even if you convert it to an icon) so when it got to the outlook end it was displayed as such. Without my html signature it sent as a regular email with attachments as expected (PS i have 'always send windows friendly attachments' selected).

So, if you do have a signature in your email, convert to plain text (shift, command,T). If it is just text (and you have 'always send windows friendly attachments' selected) then it should send through fine!

Yay!

[tylerb]

I experienced problems on the recipient end from both Outlook and Yahoo mail accounts. I use Mail as my delivery system.

I tried several of the above offered solutions and there were only two that worked for me... putting the jpgs into a folder before sending and changing the signature to plain text.

Converting my signature to plain text was by far the easiest solution for the recipient. The file came through as if sent from another PC.

Thank you to everyone that contributed to this. outmyhead, you rock.

[impactdave]

It appears to me that this is an issue with certain PC email programs. I've had clients return my emails asking me to attach rather than embed my attachment, yet I can see the attachment on her returned email! This confirms the file IS attached, it just isn't being seen as such by their email program.

Maybe we should start gathering data on what email programs are being used by people who are having problems with our attachments??

[Mac In School]

Outlook is definitely the big one, as the vast majority of people use it.

[diburrup]

Not sure what we can do about a PC email program... but I believe the 2 main people I've communicated with on this problem to use Outlook. I have had many people tell me they cannot open my attachments tho. This started happening with MacMail that came with Leopard, so I have reason to believe our email program is handling attachments differently than before - these 2 people I email with all the time could open them fine before Leopard. Thanks to everyone that has responded on this ...

[ddb7116]

Been using an imac for a year and this issue is the most annoying of the many I have encountered. (don't worry there are plenty in Windows as well). I am a bit surprised how so many Mac lovers duck for cover on this issue and say it isn't Apples fault. It is a real issue and needs fixing. Yes when you receive the "embedded" photo in Outlook you can right click and save it but only as a bitmap file which is useless. Some of the solutions suggested work sometimes but why should we need a work around.
The only certain solution is to consign Apple Mail to the trash bin and use Thunderbird as the email client. On the imac, Thunderbird behaves just like it does on a PC and attaches the file rather than embed it. Problem solvered. No more exasperated replies from Windows friends. Looks like to me it is a quirk of Apple Mail and they should fix it.

Next one I want to work on is to get the imac to simply export a jpeg file exactly as it is on disk - same name,date and size - instead of giving me a long menu of options to resize and rename but no option just to leave the thing as it is. Hopefully this is due to my ignorance and not another unsolvable Apple quirk.
Thanks to everyone for their input on this issue.

[ddb7116]

A little humble pie may be in order. I just tried the right click and "view as icon" trick and it appears to work. When you do this in the Apple Mail message, the photo appears as an icon showing the file size (the size can be adjusted by using the menu in the bottom right corner) and when received in Outlook on a PC the photo appears as a jpeg attachment which can be saved.
I have tried this twice and it worked both times so perhaps this is the answer. If it is one might think it would be documented. Haven't tried it with all the other combinations of signature/no signature, plain text etc.

Hooray!

Now to find a logical answer to my other problem.

[ssept]

I have been sending emails with attachments from mail to both macs and PC's for years without problems, but recently clients (only PC users) have complained that attachments are embedded in email and cannot be saved as separate files. I believe the issue is linked to using signatures in apple mail and because it only appears to have become an issue in the past 12-18mths I suspect it is linked to the Leopard upgrade. So come on Apple have a look at it instead of sticking your heads in the sand!
My solution is either dont use signatures, or if you have do, right click on attachment/s and select 'view as icon'.
Alternatively go to http://lokiware.info/Mail-Attachments-Iconizer and download the fix. Does the same thing as 'view as icon' but without the hassle!!:)
Hope this helps

[dentaldoc]

My dental lab uses software for shade matching. I take a few pictures along with some calibration tabs and email the jpeg files to them. When I tried taking only a single picture and attached it they would respond that the file is embedded in the email and they could not use it for analysis.

My solution is to create a new empty folder and then copy the picture (jpeg) into the folder and then give the folder some appropriate name. Then, when I attach the folder with the JPEG file inside, the lab seems to be happy.

I hope this helps.

When I have several pictures to send, I usually have to compress them so the total size of the folder is not too large (under 10 MB). I am using OS 10.6.3 with Mac Mail on a Mac Mini.

[pattyogrady]

This drove me crazy until I finally figured out. 1. Does not matter if mail is plain or html format, 2. Does not matter if mail edit settings puts attachment at bottom of email although I recommend that setting, 3) does not matter if mail edit settings send window friendly email although I recommend this setting too, 4) you do not have to write complicated code to fix it, and 5) do not have to send angry emails to Apple.

Very simple...with new email open...bring cursor to attachment icon on upper tool bar...hit control then click (I am new to Mac but I think this is how you "right click" a Mac). A small drop down will open and HURRAH you can choose:

1. Icon Only - Attachment in any supported format attaches as icon only
2. Text Only - Attachment in any supported format embeds as text in email
3. Icon and Text - That is correct - you can attach it both ways!

I KNEW Apple is too good not to have a simple setting fix - and not just a setting buy an CHOICE. Took awhile to find it. But Apple Still Rocks!

[miles01110]

Wtf?

This only changes the appearance of the buttons on the top of the "New Message" window. It has nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

This drove me crazy until I finally figured out. 1. Does not matter if mail is plain or html format, 2. Does not matter if mail edit settings puts attachment at bottom of email although I recommend that setting, 3) does not matter if mail edit settings send window friendly email although I recommend this setting too, 4) you do not have to write complicated code to fix it, and 5) do not have to send angry emails to Apple.

Very simple...with new email open...bring cursor to attachment icon on upper tool bar...hit control then click (I am new to Mac but I think this is how you "right click" a Mac). A small drop down will open and HURRAH you can choose:

1. Icon Only - Attachment in any supported format attaches as icon only
2. Text Only - Attachment in any supported format embeds as text in email
3. Icon and Text - That is correct - you can attach it both ways!

I KNEW Apple is too good not to have a simple setting fix - and not just a setting buy an CHOICE. Took awhile to find it. But Apple Still Rocks!

[MacMeAlways]

When you attach the file, and it opens in your mail, rather than appearing as an icon -- THEN you control click right on the opened up image and it will give you an option to "view as icon" - and WA-LA it works!!!! I've been struggling with that problem forever, and finally figured it out!