Do me a favor and look at your email inbox right now. I’d be willing to bet that at least some of the emails aren’t typical plain text emails; instead, they’re nicely formatted messages that look more like a web page than just a bunch of words. These are HTML (HyperText Markup Language) emails that are usually designed to inform or entice you, with fancy graphics, photos, animations, and of course some text. As nice as these sound, Apple Mail isn’t designed to let you create HTML emails; instead, it uses what is called RTF or “rich text format”. In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you several ways to design an HTML email, then let you in on the secret of how to send those emails from the Mac Mail app.
Creating Your HTML Email
Let me repeat one point from that opening paragraph — there’s no way to make an HTML-formatted email in Mail, which means you’ll need to use some way of designing your email and generating the HTML file and any associated cascading style sheets (CSS). For those who have experience in coding HTML, you could just pop open your favorite text editor and design the page totally with text. Most of those reading this post will want an easier way to accomplish the task.
Let me repeat one point from that opening paragraph — there’s no way to make an HTML-formatted email in Mail, which means you’ll need to use some way of designing your email and generating the HTML file and any associated cascading style sheets (CSS). For those who have experience in coding HTML, you could just pop open your favorite text editor and design the page totally with text. Most of those reading this post will want an easier way to accomplish the task.
Nov 09, 2016 Email Signature - Embedded images (Outlook 15.26 Mac) Hi there, We've been having trouble when attempting to update our company email signature through the preferences pane in desktop version of Outlook; namely any linked images in the signature are being downloaded, processed and embedded as a file in outgoing emails. Adding an image to your Mac Mail signature. Open the Mail app in Mac OS; go to the “Mail” menu → “Preferences”. Choose the “Signatures” tab, then click the + plus button to add a new signature, or select a signature you’ve already created. May 30, 2015 I have an iMac OS10.8.5. For the last couple of months, many (not all) graphics in Apple Mail emails come out as small blue squares with a question mark inside, which is very annoying. Copy your image into the new email message. Ensure only the image is placed in the email (no other text) 3. Now, select the image (ctrl + a) and go to Edit Menu - Add Link and type in the web address you want the image to link to. Finally, ensure you still have the image highlighted (ctrl +a) and copy the image. Embedding an image into an email message is the act of adding the image into the coding of the email template for it to appear amongst the text once the subscriber opens it, instead of appearing as an email attachment. Embedded images in 2019.
If you’re going to be emailing thousands of people on a regular basis, you don’t want to use Mail to do this as you’ll most likely end up having your Mail account put on spam blacklists! Instead, services like MailChimp or Constant Contact offer a way to design and send mass emails. They’re also usually quite expensive, but if you are sending those thousands of emails daily or weekly these services are well worth the cost.
(A typical HTML email, as viewed in Mac Mail.)Mac HTML Editors
What we want to do is create an HTML file that can be opened on a Mac in Safari; if that goal is reached, then the same file can be sent from Mail. There are a number of web and email design apps available for Mac and I’ll list some here, but since not all email is read on a desktop device these days, you’ll want to make sure that the app you use is capable of what’s called “responsive design”. That means that it can create web pages that look good no matter what device you’re using to view them — a Mac, an iPhone or an iPad. It’s also useful if you can use a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) drag-and-drop editor that gives you a way to just drop elements like text, images, and buttons onto a blank page or template, then export an HTML file. Here are some well-rated Mac web design apps:
What we want to do is create an HTML file that can be opened on a Mac in Safari; if that goal is reached, then the same file can be sent from Mail. There are a number of web and email design apps available for Mac and I’ll list some here, but since not all email is read on a desktop device these days, you’ll want to make sure that the app you use is capable of what’s called “responsive design”. That means that it can create web pages that look good no matter what device you’re using to view them — a Mac, an iPhone or an iPad. It’s also useful if you can use a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) drag-and-drop editor that gives you a way to just drop elements like text, images, and buttons onto a blank page or template, then export an HTML file. Here are some well-rated Mac web design apps:
- Sparkle (Mac App Store): A WYSIWYG design tool that is rather expensive ($89.99 for Sparkle Pro), but creates responsive HTML and can export a file.
- EverWeb: At $79.95 for the software only, Everweb is pricey but offers good support, responsive HTML and the ability to publish to a folder. EverWeb will seem very familiar to those who used Apple’s iWeb app.
- Wolf – Responsive Web Designer (Mac App Store): $59.99, provides responsive design and is well-loved by users.
If you’re a designer you probably already have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, and the company’s Dreamweaver app is very well-suited to the task of designing responsive emails.
Regardless of the app used to create the HTML file, you’ll most likely end up with an exported file that contains the file in addition to a folder containing the images that were used in the email design. On your Mac, you can double-click that HTML file to open it in Safari and you’ll see exactly what you’re going to be sending, images and all. However, if you tried to send that email at this point, your recipients would see well-styled text and buttons, but no images because they’re on your Mac!
You’ll need to host those image files somewhere to ensure that Mail is able to grab them from a server and then display them in the email. If you already run a website, then it’s a relatively easy task to just create a hosting folder, place your email images in that folder, and then change the image links in your email HTML code to point to “https://mywebsite.com/images/myphoto.jpg” instead of to the local “/images/myphoto.jpg” file. If you don’t have a place to host your photos, there are plenty of website hosting services that charge a monthly fee for a domain name and hosting. You then upload your files to the host via ftp, then change those image links in your email HTML. Thinking of hosting those files on a cloud service like Dropbox or iCloud? Neither of those services works for this purpose.
Remember that you can use your own Mac as a server, either with macOS Server (be sure to read our series on macOS Server) or MAMP. This takes a while to get everything set up, but if you’re planning on sending out the occasional HTML email to friends or business prospects, it can be a low-cost source of hosting image files.
Online Email Editors
This looks like an expensive proposition, especially if all you want to do is design and send an custom invitation to a few friends. Still, for small businesses or even the occasional personal HTML email, if you have a host for those images you’re well on your way. You probably noticed, though, that the Mac HTML editors aren’t exactly inexpensive, so what’s a good way to design an HTML email without that added expense? Use an online HTML email editor.
This looks like an expensive proposition, especially if all you want to do is design and send an custom invitation to a few friends. Still, for small businesses or even the occasional personal HTML email, if you have a host for those images you’re well on your way. You probably noticed, though, that the Mac HTML editors aren’t exactly inexpensive, so what’s a good way to design an HTML email without that added expense? Use an online HTML email editor.
Bee is designed specifically for the purpose of creating responsive HTML emails. What’s really nice is that for the occasional one-off HTML email, you don’t need an account nor do you need to pay a cent; just go to the Bee website, select Bee Free, and start designing by dragging and dropping elements (see screenshot below):
(Bee Free is an easy-to-use and free way to design HTML emails.)Once you’ve created your masterpiece, click the Save button in the top right corner of the Bee editor and you’re given the choice of downloading it (free) or saving it (requires an account). Download to your Mac, and you’ll get a folder containing the HTML file as well as an “images” folder containing the images in your email. Upload the images to your host, edit the HTML file to point to those files, and then test your HTML file by opening it in Safari. Broken image links — meaning that the link in your HTML file isn’t correctly pointed to the image files — can ruin your whole day (see image below):
(A broken image link in an HTML email.)Fix the broken link, then check the file again in Safari.
Other free online HTML email creation services include:
- Topol.io
- Stripo.email
- Mosaico.io
Each service provides a way to design HTML emails through a simple WYSIWYG editor, then download the completed HTML file. Regardless of which service you choose to use, be sure to check your file in Safari. When everything looks just the way you want it to be, it’s time to use the remarkably easy trick to send out the email in Apple Mail.
Sending the HTML Email in Apple Mail
After this lengthy process, you’d think that sending the HTML email in Apple Mail would be difficult as well. Wrong!
After this lengthy process, you’d think that sending the HTML email in Apple Mail would be difficult as well. Wrong!
With your HTML email opened in Safari, choose Edit > Select All from the menu bar or press Command – A. This command highlights all of the HTML email on the screen, after which you need to copy the email using Edit > Copy or Command – C.
Navigate to Apple Mail and create a blank email, then click in the spot where you’d normally start typing your message. Instead, paste the HTML email you copied from Safari into that space using Edit > Paste or Command – V (see image below):
![Image Image](https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/stationery-email-styles-mac-mail-4.jpg)
This method works regardless of how you created the HTML file. Just make sure you’ve hosted your images somewhere, select the entire “web page” you’ve designed, copy it, and paste it into Apple Mail. The nice thing is that by hosting those images on a server, the formatted email complete with photos is actually quite small — the example above is 323 KB in size, even though the images that are used in it are well over 2 MB each.
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How To Embed Image In Mac Mail
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You’re probably reading this because you’re tired of seeing your email signature images being added as attachments in your emails. Believe it or not, this is a very common problem that many people face.
But don’t worry, there are ways to fix this all too common problem.
Before we get into the technical details, it’s important to know exactly why this problem happens so you can understand it better.
Why do email signature images get converted to attachments?
For as long as emails have been around, there have been 3 different email messaging formats: HTML, Rich Text, and Plain Text.
When you use a HTML email signature (one that includes images such as logos or profile pictures), you must use the HTML or Rich Text messaging format when sending out emails.
If you don’t, the pictures in your HTML email signature get added as attachments to your email. This happens because the plain text messaging format doesn’t support images, so instead of completely removing the images from your email, they are simply added as attachments.
How to Change the Messaging Format When Composing New Emails
Outlook 2010 onwards
This setting is under File > Options > Mail > Compose Messages > From the “Compose messages in this format” section, choose HTML.
Outlook 2003 – 2007
This setting is under Tools > Options > Mail Format > From the “Compose messages in this format” section, choose HTML. Sling tv app mac os.
Apple Mail
With Apple Mail, when Rich Text is selected, it is automatically converted to HTML when sending emails.
This setting is under Mail > Preferences > Composing Tab > From the “Message Format” section, choose Rich Text.
How to Change the Messaging Format on Incoming Emails
What about when someone sends you an email in plain text / rich text format? In an ideal world, everyone will have their email clients set to compose new messages in HTML format, but unfortunately that is not the case.
If you receive an email in plain text / rich text format, you can easily change the message format, however it is a manual action you have to do for each message.
Outlook 2010 onwards
Open the message in a new window (double click on the message) then click on Reply, Reply All or Forward. At the top, click on the Format Text tab, select HTML.
Outlook also has an option where it converts all incoming email messages into plain text format.
If all your incoming emails are being converted to plain text, check the setting below and make sure it is not ticked.
This setting is under File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings… > Email Security > Read as Plain Text > Read all standard mail in plain text.
Emails Converted to Plain Text by the Recipient
When you compose a new email in HTML format, the email doesn’t always stay in that format throughout the email chain. The email format can be changed by anyone who replies to that email.
For example, take a look at this example email trail to see how it can get converted between formats.
Debbie: Uses HTML email messaging format.
Harry: Uses Rich Text messaging format.
Tom: Uses Plain Text messaging format.
Debbie sends an email to Harry – Email is converted from HTML to Rich Text when it reaches Harry’s inbox.
Harry forwards that email to Tom – Email is converted from Rich Text to Plain Text when it reaches Tom’s inbox.
Tom forwards that email to Debbie – Email is delivered to Debbie’s mailbox as Plain Text.
But hang on, why is the email delivered to Debbie’s mailbox as Plain Text? Wouldnt it be converted to HTML format since Debbie’s email client uses HTML messaging format?
The answer is no. Email clients will automatically downgrade messaging formats, but in order to upgrade, you need to do it manually.
So, an email will freely convert from HTML > Rich Text > Plain Text, but once it’s in plain text format, someone will need to manually change it back to Rich Text or HTML by using the above steps.
Exchange Server Converting All Outgoing Messages to Plain Text
At times, your Microsoft Exchange server can automatically convert all outgoing messages into plain text, and if that is the case, then you need to get in contact with your network administrator to remedy this problem.
However, this doesn’t normally happen, as the default Microsoft Exchange behavior is to send all messages in the format that the email client dictates.
If you’ve set your composing message format to be HTML, and your emails are still being converted to plain text and the recipient definitely hasn’t converted it, then your emails are most likely being converted to plain text by your Exchange server.
Images Are Embedded Instead of Linked
When creating your email signature, be sure to host your images on a web server and link to them from your email signature, instead of embedding them into the signature itself.
If you have an embedded image in your signature, most of the time Outlook will automatically convert them to attachments.
Anti-Virus Software Scanning Email
If you’ve tried everything and your email signature images are still being attached, it could be your anti-virus software (precisely the email scanning component) causing this issue.
Embed Images In Email Mail.app Mac Download
You should try disabling the feature that scans emails to see if it still happens.
Embed Image In Mac Mail
Give up?
Sometimes figuring out why images in email signatures are converted to attachments can be an utter pain. We know because we create email signatures for a living.
If you’ve tried everything above and the images are still turning to attachments, it could just be the way you have coded your email signature or maybe you’ve accidentally embedded your image instead of linking to it.
We provide a free email signature generator which makes email signatures in accordance with the HTML standard specifications. When you upload an image, it will always be linked to our image hosting platform and not embedded.
Creating a professional email signature means you can rest assured that at least the HTML code won’t be the reason your images are turning into attachments.