Why does Mac Mail embed my attachments and can I get it to stop?

September 29, 2010 11:12 AM

Why does Mac Mail embed my photo attachments and can I get it to stop?

I send digital photos from my Exchange IMAP email account using Mac Mail. I do it a lot, and it's a big part of my day to day work.

Many, many, many times I get a response email that says: "Thanks! These are great! Could you send them as an attachment?" Which, of course, is exactly what I did the first time. My assumption is that people could right-click and save the images, and I've put instructions on how to do that in my email signature. But the emails will not cease. Am I wrong about the right-click? (It appears that I am in at least some cases. I just got a rather irritated email from one particular someone who "has an MBA and a Management Info Systems minor" and was clearly put off by my asking about the right-click option when he asked me to send them as attachments. Again.)

Can I get Mail to stop embedding the files, or am I doomed to keep having this email conversation?

posted by rinosaur to technology (10 answers total)

It depends on the mail client on the recipient side, but Outlook 2007 shows me both the attachment in-line with the message and in the attachments list at the top of the message. Mac Mail just shows it in-line.

Right-clicking on the image and saving it is definitely not too much to ask, but it is surprising how many people don't realize they have a right-mouse button. Mac users may need to be told to Ctrl+click to get the menu if they don't have right-click enabled on their mouse.
posted by tmt at 11:21 AM on September 29, 2010

Have you checked the preference box that says "Send Windows-friendly attachments"?
posted by emelenjr at 11:24 AM on September 29, 2010

I have checked the windows-friendly box. My most recent response was from someone who could right-click to copy, but not right-click to save.
posted by rinosaur at 11:37 AM on September 29, 2010

Just fwiw, I've had emails sent from Mac Mail users with the embedded attachments and (in thunderbird at least) its not as simple as just right click->save. When I do that in thunderbird the file is given the name of the Folder the email is in and doesn't have a file extension (so I have to guess). It is really irritating to get a bunch of images embedded in an email instead of as attachments.
posted by missmagenta at 11:39 AM on September 29, 2010

Try changing your Composing format:
Preferences > Composing > Message Format > Plain Text

I'm betting you're sending in Rich Text (which is the default)
In any case, even as a Rich Text message, the images ARE being sent as attachments, as well as being displayed inline. You can easily see that in MacMail itself...The image appears inline, but, up there at the bottom of the header is a toggle that will reveal all attachments in the mail. I suspect your recipients are not seeing wherever their mail client displays the attachments.

its not as simple as just right click->save. When I do that in thunderbird the file is given the name of the Folder the email is in and doesn't have a file extension

Can you do "Save As..." instead of "Save"? Then, you can designate the proper location for the files (as well as add any necessary file extension.)
posted by Thorzdad at 11:52 AM on September 29, 2010

You could use this. I don't know of any other way to handle this.
posted by crapples at 11:52 AM on September 29, 2010

zip 'em up.
posted by kindall at 11:52 AM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Can you do "Save As..." instead of "Save"? Then, you can designate the proper location for the files (as well as add any necessary file extension.)

That is with Save Image As (the only option). Yes I can manually give it a name and file extension but I really shouldn't have to. If the images were sent properly as attachments then there would be no need to make up names and guess what file extension it should have. (or fish around in the message source code to find the content-type)

The easiest thing is to just zip your images before you send them.
posted by missmagenta at 11:59 AM on September 29, 2010

A lot of mail clients automatically convert HTML/Rich Text image attachments into inline images.

To avoid that send the message as plain text (Preferences, Composing)
posted by Lanark at 12:47 PM on September 29, 2010

Thanks everyone! I'm going to try the plain text method and see if that works. If all else fails, I can fall back on the zip method. You guys are great!
posted by rinosaur at 1:39 PM on September 30, 2010