How To Insert An Image Directly Into The Body Of An Email Message

It used to be that inserting an image into the body of an email was simple, but that was back in the day when everyone used to use email clients. Today, most people use webmail instead, and very few webmail interfaces actually allow placing images in the body of the message. AOL Mail is one of the few that still has the feature. Hotmail has a "Photos" option, but it acts like attachments and not in-the-message images. Yahoo! Mail and Gmail don’t have any ability to insert images in the body of an email at all.

In the Windows environment, you can get images in the body of your message no matter what webmail you use as long as you know the copy/paste trick out of a web browser tab.

Step 1. Get an image

Acquire an image. Easy enough.

Step 2. Upload to Imgur

There is no account or signup required to use Imgur (pronounced like "imager"). Go towww.imgur.com, and press the big "Computer" button:

When you do this, a window will pop up. Navigate to where your image is and open.

When the window closes, click the big "Start Upload" button:

 

Step 3. Resize the image, save and view

After the upload is complete, you’ll see your image, but you may need to resize if the image is huge. Why do this? Because you need a "civilized" image size for email. Remember, this image is going in the body of the message, so you don’t want it full-size or you’ll get horizontal scrollbars like crazy.

On the right under the link codes is "Sizes". Choose "Large Thumbnail":

If the resized image is still too big, you can alternatively use "Edit Image" (above the link codes), and manually enter in a pixel size value.

After you’re done with your resizing, your resized image will be in view. Click once directly on it so it’s the only thing visible in the browser:

Step 4. Open another tab, load your webmail and start a new message

You must be in "rich text" or "formatted" mode when you do this. If you have the ability to bold/italic/underline/etc. text on composition of a new email, formatting is turned on.

 

Step 5. Switch to the tab with the image in it, select and copy

This is something I can’t show in a screenshot, but here’s how it’s done:

a) Switch to the tab with the image
b) Click once on the image to give it app focus
c) Press CTRL+A to select all
d) Press CTRL+C to copy

Nothing will appear to have happened when you do any of this, but what you did is just copied the image and it’s hosted destination on Imgur to the clipboard.

Step 6. Switch to the tab with your email, and paste

Place your cursor where you want the image to go, then press CTRL+V, then Enter, and type the rest of your message.

It will look something like this:

Finish up, and send your message.

Is this the same as attaching an image as a file?

No. You’re using Imgur here as a 3rd party host for your image.

How long will my image remain on Imgur before it’s deleted?

That is answered here.

Do I have to use Imgur?

No. You can use any image hosting service you wish – as long as it gives you the ability to view the image alone in a browser as shown above.