Mac mail not showing inline images from Windows Outlook sender

[ArchPrime]

Hi, I am a windows user and have a couple of people on OS X Yosemite reporting back that with the HTML emails I send them, my inline/embedded illustrations (usually several interspersed per message) either do not appear for them at all (they just see a small red cross), or they appear only as attachments instead - neither of which are good things, because this impedes fluid backwards and forwards discussion and interspersed replies addressing each ilustration,

I am sending from Outlook 2016 on a Windows 10 PC, and do not seem to encounter this issue from PC recipients.

I need a way to communicate with several people at once, spread across both Mac & PC platforms, where we can all see and respond paragraph by paragraph, to the same inline illustrations.

Are there any settings or other known impediments that could be interfering with inline images here?
Unfortunately, both Mac users are remote from mme and not computer literate, and while I am pretty handy on PC, I know very little about OS X.

It does not seem reasonable that I have to exclude them from discussions just because of their OS preference, but a google search elicits nothing obviously relevant.

Any help most appreciated!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

From what you are saying, it sounds like email may not be the best option available to you. You could try something like an online Google Doc or Form. Everyone could access the document, and either comment on the Doc, or fill out their responses on the Form, which would then summarize all the responses in the Form summary or a separate Google Sheet.

Normal emails aren't setup for this. If you want to use inline images in an HTML email, it is better to have them stored on an Internet-accessible server - i.e. Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Dropbox, etc., and then insert an HTML picture link. They should then load properly for Macs and PCs. You could also use a service like MailChimp.

Hope that helps,

C

 

[ArchPrime]

Thanks for your reply Cory

Some good suggestions, though adding processes like having to separately save and upload and reference back all the screenshots I can normally just paste from clipboard directly into the body of the email text I am typing, would kill the spontaneity and speed I am used to - what should be 2-minute exercise suddenly takes 15 minutes, and it suddenly seems not worth the effort to include those recipients - which is crazy.

These mature operating systems and email apps have had many, many years to iron out any kinks that would impede communication fidelity between them - and neither application is exactly obscure enough to be a low priority target for ensuring compatibility, both being the industry standard on their respective operating systems, each with many millions of users.

This makes me suspect that the OSX app probably IS capable of receiving and faithfully displaying embedded images in HTML emails, but that something else may be going on.

It is important to me that all conversations are kept as intact threads, and all are stored in Outlook as this is my message archive/database.

This approach has certainly been very successful for some years, right up until recently when I struck the two Mac users and their OS X email application's apparent difficulty with correctly parsing inline images. Oddly enough images from those users get through to me just fine, embedded in the email text as they should be, so the 'obstruction' seems to be just at one end.

What I am hoping somebody can identify is a setting somewhere in OS X or it's mail app that will enable HTML messages received to parse embedded images correctly, and display them just as they are sent?

Is there a free addon that is known to help?

Are there factors or settings known to interfere with Outlook=>OS X HTML mail fidelity? Have these been overcome within the respective apps?

I don't mind a few formatting discrepancies, as this is in support of a rapid fire working process, not a publication exercise - but embedded images do need to remain visible and embedded for quick and fluid dialogue involving them to occur.

 

[honestone]

It's too bad none of them have Outlook 2016 for the Mac (as part of Office 2016 for the Mac), as I suspect this issue would not exist.

Also, I just tried doing a Google search about your issue, but could not find anything definitive.

 

[ArchPrime]

Yes, that would probably solve it - though seems like hitting a walnut with an expensive sledgehammer.
Gmail and everything else I have sent these embedded image emails to seem to display them correctly, but I will have little chance of getting these users to switch away from the built in mail app, just to solve this problem.

 

[honestone]

One would think Apple's Mail program would have some kind of setting for this situation. Wish my searches before would have yielded something.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries.

As I understand your workflow, it actually isn't something that email was designed for. It's a communication tool, not a project collaboration tool. Google Docs was designed as a collaboration tool, where numerous people can view/comment/edit a live document in real-time. But, if you workflow is working for you, then there isn't any need to change it up.

The OS X Mail app can indeed show embedded/inline images in HTML (Rich Text) emails. There may be a couple of settings they could change in Mail > Preferences that could help:

Viewing
-Enable Load remote content in messages

Composing
-Message Format: Rich Text
-Enable Use the same message format as the original message

I just setup Outlook 2016 here on my Mac with my Gmail account. I created an email and dragged and dropped an image in the middle of the email, with text before and after it. Apple Mail received and displayed the image correctly. I ensured the email I created in Outlook was an HTML message.

Which version of Outlook are you using on your PC? I may be able to dig up a PC at work that has the same version of Outlook and test it from that as well. There has got to be a setting somewhere we are overlooking, as I haven't experienced your issue first-hand that I can recall.

C

 

[ArchPrime]

Thanks Cory - I appreciate the effort you went to looking into this!

I will pass those suggestions on.

I am using Outlook 2016, on Windows 10

What would be interesting also is whether Gmail accounts are inherently 'immune' to the issue somehow even if other providers are not (perhaps something to do with the way messages are handled in transit).
One of my recipients reported that everything worked for him when sent to his Gmail address - I am struggling to elicit from the user whether this was read using the same email client, or Gmail's own desktop app or web app.