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REALLY easy way to email pictures?

Mr Skills

Mr Skills

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 21, 2005
803
1
This is another of my famous trying-to-help-my-parents threads :)

My parents phone me every other day for help emailing pictures. They get really confused by the whole exporting from iphoto, choosing a size, etc.

It would be much easier with mail.app because they could just click the email button in iPhoto. Unfortunately they like webmail because they can access it when on holiday etc.

So the way I see it there are three options:
1. Get them .mac (advantages: interchangeable between mail.app and web, and interface the same on both. disadvantages: expensive, maybe unreliable?)
2. Get them a cheap imap service (disadvantages: webmail services often have clunky interfaces for beginners)
3. find some little utility or applescript that will automate uploading pictures to GMail.

Any ideas?
 
1. Put all your photos in iPhoto.
2. Get a GMail account and hook it up to Mail.
3. Locate photo/s in iPhoto, click "Email" button.

That's about it.

If you want to automate the process you could open Automator, set up a process whereby it selects say your last week's worth of photos and mails them to a certain address at a certain size/resolution.

You could then save it as an iCal alarm that happens every week so that when the alarm goes off it runs the Automator script and archives your photos.
 
swiftaw said:
what webmail service do they use? If they use gmail they can use mail.app and the gmail web interface simultaneously.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick reply! :)

They do use gmail, but it is POP not IMAP. As I understand it, POP can have difficulties interchanging between web and client (as opposed to just choosing one or the other) - i.e. what's on your computer being correctly synced with what's on the web. I really don't want a *hint* of complication if it can be avoided!
 
Mr Skills said:
They get really confused by the whole exporting from iphoto, choosing a size, etc.
Click to expand...

This doesn't help with your main goal... but you don't have to "export" from iPhoto. If you click on a picture, and then click on the Email icon at the bottom of iPhoto, it pops up a dialog box and all you have to choose is "small, medium, Large, or Full Quality". When you hit ok, it automatically inserts the picture into a new message window.

I'd set them up with a gmail account and still use the Mail.app, that way they can use the web based mail when they need too. It's a lot cheaper than .Mac
 

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Mr Skills said:
Thanks for the quick reply! :)

They do use gmail, but it is POP not IMAP. As I understand it, POP can have difficulties interchanging between web and client (as opposed to just choosing one or the other) - i.e. what's on your computer being correctly synced with what's on the web. I really don't want a *hint* of complication if it can be avoided!
Click to expand...

It IS less convenient than IMAP, but still manageable. As long as when you set up mail.app you tell it to keep the messages on the server, then they will see the same emails through mail.app as they do through the webmail interface. Also, one of the nice things about gmail is that it will upload the outgoing messages to the server so they will see those through the webmail interface also.
 
Chundles said:
1. Put all your photos in iPhoto.
2. Get a GMail account and hook it up to Mail.
3. Locate photo/s in iPhoto, click "Email" button.

That's about it.
Click to expand...

They already have a gmail account. I did think about setting up mail.app so they could use it only when sending pictures. But then if it's a month before the next time they send someone a picture, mail.app might get bogged down retrieving a month's worth of pictures. I'm also worried about the whole POP-getting-out-of-sync thing.
 
First, just to say thanks for everyone's quick help! :D


swiftaw said:
It IS less convenient than IMAP, but still manageable.
Click to expand...

That sentence scares me a little. 'Less convenient' for you and me may equal "terrible computer nightmare" for my parents! They even ring me up if a web link opens in a new window ("the back button doesn't work!").

Aren't there problems with things you've deleted in mail.app not being deleted in gmail on the web? And do gmail tags translate intuitively to mail.app folders?

In short, can they really move *seamlessly* between mail.app and the web with gmail? I'd love for you to say yes :D

I would persuade them to try .mac if I had not heard so many horror stories about its reliability. But if you can persuade me the gmail option works....
 
Mr Skills said:
I would persuade them to try .mac if I had not heard so many horror stories about its reliability. But if you can persuade me the gmail option works....
Click to expand...

I would set up a new account on the Mac and test the gmail scenario yourself. There's no real good answer until you are able to see it with your own eyes.
 
adrianblaine said:
I would set up a new account on the Mac and test the gmail scenario yourself. There's no real good answer until you are able to see it with your own eyes.
Click to expand...

Fair point. Maybe I will set my own gmail account to work in mail.app for a while.

But I'll be round your house with the boys if it screws up my mail :p ;)
 
Hmmm... just set it up. It is currently importing every email I have ever received as an "unread mail"....
 
swiftaw said:
Yes, thats the disadvantage of POP over IMAP, mail read in either the web interface or mail.app is not noted as read in the other.
Click to expand...

Sadly, that makes it unusable for parents. It would really confuse them.

So I guess it has to IMAP then. Is .mac mail really as unreliable as some make out?
 
Mr Skills said:
Sadly, that makes it unusable for parents. It would really confuse them.

So I guess it has to IMAP then. If .mac mail really as unreliable as some make out?
Click to expand...

Just make sure you go through all the email and mark it as read before they get to use it... it will be more bearable after the initial huge amount of unread email.
 
adrianblaine said:
Just make sure you go through all the email and mark it as read before they get to use it... it will be more bearable after the initial huge amount of unread email.
Click to expand...

What about all the new emails that come after I have set it up?
 
Mr Skills said:
What about all the new emails that come after I have set it up?
Click to expand...

How much email do they get and how often will they be checking it on the web?

You know your parents better than we do, so if you don't think they'll be able to handle it, .Mac is probably a good way to go. It's just a lot of money for an email account...
 
adrianblaine said:
How much email do they get and how often will they be checking it on the web?

You know your parents better than we do, so if you don't think they'll be able to handle it, .Mac is probably a good way to go. It's just a lot of money for an email account...
Click to expand...

Can't you sign up for a free trial and then keep the email address once the trial is over?
 
adrianblaine said:
How much email do they get and how often will they be checking it on the web?

You know your parents better than we do, so if you don't think they'll be able to handle it, .Mac is probably a good way to go. It's just a lot of money for an email account...
Click to expand...

True, it's expensive. And they don't like spending money on technology (I gave them my old Mac). But I'm starting to see that it's actually a pretty good service for the non-technical. I know I'm struggling to find an equally simple way to handle this on the cheap.

Maybe I'll put them on the three month trial. But they are so scared of new technical things that there is a danger they'll never actually try it in the three months after I first show them....

They actually love the idea of email and the web, and are quite good at picking stuff up. But they are so scared of technology that they never want to spend 20 minutes being shown something (and I consider myself pretty good/patient when trying to teach this stuff...)

eenu said:
Yes if you pay a reduced fee for the email part
Click to expand...

Ooh... anything to reduce the cost would help. Didn't see anything about the "email only" service on the .mac site - do you have a link?
 
Mr Skills said:
Ooh... anything to reduce the cost would help. Didn't see anything about the "email only" service on the .mac site - do you have a link?
Click to expand...

http://www.mac.com/1/currencytable.html

Says full membership required......however when i questioned apple about losing the email addy they said i could pay for only the email. I think that 'statement' means you have had a full membership in the past. ie not trial
 
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