Please help me not throw my phone off my balcony
November 4, 2020 7:27 AM   Subscribe

I have an iPhone 7SE. I absolutely hate it. The latest thing I'm fighting with it to do is attaching photos to emails within the Gmail app. I click the little paperclip icon as usual to attach a photo, then click on "camera roll" to get it to bring up my photo library... and then I can't select any of the photos that appear. Tapping on them does nothing. When the option to choose camera roll appears, I can attach photos if I swipe to the left on the tiny selection of pictures that appear, but of course the photos I want to attach don't appear in that menu.

WHY? Is the app just a piece of crap? I've reinstalled it and rebooted my phone. Same thing happens. Is there a better app to use with Gmail accounts? I dislike the native Apple mail app.

(Here is a screenshot of what I mean by the camera roll.)

And another thing that gives me the rage is that I can't seem to download PDFs to my phone. I can save them to my Google Drive, but not my phone. So for example, if a health provider emails me my receipt, I can't download the PDF in order to attach it to my claim in my health insurance company's app. I have to download it on my PC, export it as a JPEG, and then email it back to myself so I can grab the photo on my phone. My insurer's app doesn't let me access my Google Drive, so that route's not an option.

I miss my Motorola.
posted by Stoof to Technology (15 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Your photos may be too large to attach to an email.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:34 AM on November 4, 2020


Wow, both of those sound really frustrating. One question, then some advice... which specific phone do you have? A 7SE isn't really a thing.

1. Regardless of what phone you have, these issues aren't exclusive to your phone. You're on the same operating system as all the other iphones. So everyone could be hitting the same issues.

2. For the photos selection, 1: I quite like the native mail app, but to each their own. A lot of people use gmail. But, 2, IOS just added photo app permissions - certain apps get certain amount of access to your photos. Open the settings app, scroll to the gmail app, and tap it. Under Photos, make sure you select "all photos". This setting is something I value, but maybe the pop-up or default settings should prompt the user more often, because it's a bit more fidgety than apple stuff usually is.

3. As for downloading PDFs, when you open a PDF, (let's say in chrome or safari), can you long press (tap and hold for ~1.5 seconds) to see the alternative menu? Or can you do that to the mail attachment? Also, can you open those PDFs in "Files"? I know iphones aren't the best at file management, and sometimes these things can be frustrating, but there should be a way involving long pressing attachments, the open PDF, or something, that would allow you to save it or open it in the files app.

I hope these answers help!
posted by bbqturtle at 7:34 AM on November 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Along the lines of bbqturtle's answer, is it possible that the apps you've tried to download PDFs from don't have permission to write to local storage? (I don't have an iOS device to check this on, but maybe someone else could chime in. At any rate, looking through all your permissions settings in general could be a good idea.)
posted by trig at 7:42 AM on November 4, 2020


What version of iOS are you running? Local file storage is something that was added in the last couple of years and I use it for PDFs all the time but your phone originally was released in 2016 and definitely didn't support that at launch.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:00 AM on November 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thank you for your suggestions.

1. It's an SE 2nd Gen, sorry. iOS 14.1.

2. Photo size shouldn't be an issue unless the app requires photos to be under 20kb. It would also have to disable selecting any photo if some in the library were over the attachment limit. Unlikely.

3. "All photos" was already the selected option for Gmail.

4. As for PDFs, I don't get any options to open in the Files app. When I hit "edit" on the list of suggested apps, it does not give me the option to add the Files app. This occurs in both Gmail and Chrome.

5. I am not seeing a permissions setting in the Gmail app options for file saving. Photos, microphone, camera, etc. yes. Saving stuff, nope.
posted by Stoof at 8:01 AM on November 4, 2020


Best answer: I just tried saving a PDF attachment in GMail on my iPhone 7 (not SE), and the option is hard to find. If I open the attachment in GMail, the Google Drive button and the share icon appear on top. The share icon opens a menu that doesn't have Files in it, but if I swipe up, it displays options to Copy, Markup, Print, or Save to Files. Is that option there for you?
posted by ectabo at 8:02 AM on November 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: YES. THANK YOU. PDF issue solved.
posted by Stoof at 8:03 AM on November 4, 2020


Best answer: Is the [gmail] app just a piece of crap?

Yes, it is a piece of crap. For some reason the gmail app will only reliably attach a picture using the side-scrolling list. If you go to the full view of your photos, it will not reliably attach. De gustibus non disputandum est and all, but the iOS native app is far superior to the gmail app.
posted by slkinsey at 8:18 AM on November 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


I have an iphone 6, and I opened my gmail app. To attach a photo to an email, I clicked the paperclip icon at the top of the screen. This brings up 3 options at the bottom of the screen: Camera Roll, Attachments, and Drive. They are all horizontal scrolls. I can scroll through all my recent photos (more than just 3) or click the >, which brings up my entire camera roll. As soon as I tap a photo, it inserts it into the email (doesn't seem to attach properly - embedding instead). But it still grabs it.

So maybe it is your permissions. Open your iphone Settings app. Scroll until you see all the apps listed at the bottom of the first screen. Tap Gmail. For "Photos", does it allow "Read and Write"?
posted by hydra77 at 8:20 AM on November 4, 2020


Best answer: Great! I don't know what's going on with the photo issue, and I couldn't replicate your problem on my phone. I would try switching the permissions on and off, just to see what happens, but it could be a bug in the app. Here's a thread of other people having what sounds like the same problem, which seems to have been going on for about a week, but no one has posted a solution.
posted by ectabo at 8:23 AM on November 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Here's a backwards way to do what you want. Open your photos app. Find the photo(s) you want to attach to an email. At the top of the Photos app, tap "select", then choose those photos. At the bottom left of the screen, tap the box with the up arrow in it (upload/send to).

In the 2nd row from the bottom of the screen, you'll see a horizontal scroll of apps. If gmail is on there, choose it. If not, click the "more" and add gmail. Now select Gmail. It will open up the Gmail app and attach those photos to a new email.

(You can do this to also attach photos to a text message or upload to social media. It's super handy!)
posted by hydra77 at 8:26 AM on November 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Ectabo you are my hero. Some posts in that thread exactly describe my situation (down to the cancel button not working, which I just noticed), although my issue wasn't solved with reinstalling the app. I guess I'll be trying new mail apps!
posted by Stoof at 8:28 AM on November 4, 2020


I guess I'll be trying new mail apps!

Not related to the original question, but Spark for iOS is supposed to be very good. I use it on my desktop and quite like it.
posted by gauche at 8:59 AM on November 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Outlook for iOS is also excellent (and free)
posted by aubilenon at 9:05 AM on November 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I was just going to suggest Spark. Highly recommended.
posted by terrapin at 2:08 PM on November 5, 2020


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