Inline images getting silently converted to attachments AFTER replying/fowarding

[prioritytg]

Often when someone sends me an email that has an inline image, replying or forwarding that email converts the original inline image to an attachment. The attachment is not displayed during Compose though, so that the effect is only apparent only after the email has been sent.

Inspecting the raw message ("Show Original") shows that in the replied/forwarded message, the email part containing the original image has dropped the "Content-ID" value that links it to its original embedded context in the body, and it has also gained a "Content-Disposition: attachment..." header. Another side effect of this is that the original inline image is ONLY attached the reply/forward, and the original image in the email body has been replaced with a broken link (in Gmail, displaying as a white rectangle with a black border).

Here's an example:

As far as we can tell, this behavior began on September 6th around 10am (Eastern time). It did not occur consistently before that time in our organization, and has consistently occurred since then.

Anyone have any idea what's going on or how to stop this from happening?

[Michaelkildery]

"Entendo sua preocupação com a conversão de imagens incorporadas em anexos ao responder ou encaminhar e-mails no Google Workspace (Gmail). A conversão de imagens incorporadas em anexos pode ser causada por vários motivos e pode depender das configurações do remetente, do cliente de e-mail usado e configurações de segurança.

Aqui estão algumas possíveis causas e soluções:

1. Configurações do remetente: Às vezes, o remetente pode configurar seu cliente de e-mail para incorporar imagens no corpo do e-mail de uma forma que não é compatível com todos os clientes de e-mail. Isso pode resultar na conversão de imagens em anexos. Infelizmente, você não pode controlar as configurações do remetente.

2. Cliente de e-mail usado: o comportamento de como um cliente de e-mail lida com imagens incorporadas pode variar. Alguns clientes de e-mail podem não exibir imagens incorporadas da mesma forma que outros. Certifique-se de que você e o remetente estejam usando clientes de e-mail conhecidos por oferecer suporte eficaz a imagens incorporadas.

3. Configurações do Gmail: verifique se as configurações de exibição de imagens no Gmail estão configuradas corretamente. No Gmail, vá em “Configurações” (ícone de engrenagem) > “Ver todas as configurações” > “Geral” e certifique-se de que a opção “Perguntar antes de exibir imagens externas” esteja desmarcada.

4. Configurações de segurança: algumas configurações de segurança podem afetar a forma como as imagens são exibidas nos e-mails. Verifique as configurações de segurança do seu local de trabalho ou organização para garantir que não estejam causando a conversão de imagens em anexos.

5. Atualizações do Gmail: às vezes, o comportamento do Gmail pode ser afetado pelas atualizações. Certifique-se de que você e seus colegas estejam usando as versões mais recentes do Gmail, pois as atualizações podem resolver problemas conhecidos.

6. Entre em contato com o suporte: se o problema persistir e estiver causando problemas significativos na sua organização, é aconselhável entrar em contato com o suporte do Google Workspace. Eles podem fornecer assistência personalizada e verificar problemas específicos relacionados à sua conta ou organização.

Tenha em mente que o comportamento do email pode ser influenciado por diversas variáveis, e a solução exata pode variar dependendo das circunstâncias específicas da sua organização e dos emails que você recebe."

[plaindesign]

We are having this exact same issue (we noticed it about two weeks ago). It's driving us mad and we have not found a solution.

[BigGr33n]

We are having the same issue

[RafalJ]

I confirm the problem when replying to non Google e-mail.

[amit777]

I can confirm this is happening across hundreds of customers and is super irritating.  One thing to note, is that this behavior has actually been around for a long time.  But previously, it would only rear it's head if you opened an email that was in Draft mode and contained inline attachments.  This would cause the inline attachments to become regular attachments.   Something recently has changed to make this happen in the regular compose experience without using drafts.

[prioritytg]

That's a helpful addition to this that I was unaware of, thank you.

[SleepyGal]

Confirming this is an issue and most recently has become incredibly frustrating among several of our customers.  Haven’t been able to resolve yet. 

[corey_smith]

This is an issue for our company as well, leading to an increase in frustration among our customers and for us since we cannot find a resolution. Hosted images seem to drive a better result, yet there are still issues in rendering while in the reply thread. Thank you for bringing this issue to Google's attention. 

[torisch]

This has become a recent issue for our customers and has been frustrating to deal with. We need a resolution ASAP

[ScottVv]

Yes same here, this is very annoying! 

[cmartinez]

Same problem here.

[Superkavo]

20 users in my company have the same problem. Fix it soon please!

Did anybody found other posts about the problem? Where I could find news about that?

[Superkavo]

It has been fixed! 🎉

[prioritytg]

Thanks, Gmail team. This seems to be resolved on my end.

[BigGr33n]

This is resolved for me as well.

[FeRivers]

Looks like this has reared its ugly head again.

[vicd]

Same here. Start a draft by Reply-All on a mobile Gmail app, exit that draft, now get to a desktop browser, open that draft and continue editing - the inline images down the thread you are responding to are gone, and there are lots of attached "image.png" instead.

[macudatkela]

I have same problem.

I discovered that only problem is when I send the email via GmailAPI. Email is genererated with PHPmailer and then the .eml file is assigned as a raw content to the gmail message -> send()

if the same .eml file is send via outlook imap, no problem in reply/forward action

next interesting thing is that if I append X-attachment-ID header: CID (I saw it in source code of .eml in gmail mailbox) to the inline image part the problem is go away too.

[Hubert]

I have same problem when using Google Workspace Sync. If I send via imap, images are embedded in content

[adi_stein]

i've been talking back and forth with google support to try and resolve the problem unfortunately they did not game me any solution and put the blame all on outlook.

i'm sure its not a problem with outlook because the problem happen only when replying via gmail. 

pleas help i'm lost here and its very frustrating and as for now one on the internet could help me with this problem google included .

[CL_ML]

Hello everyone,

It took a while to find this thread, but we're facing the same issue.

We use Google Suite, and our users are on the latest Office365 Outlook with Workspace Sync. After a few email replies, all messages get converted into attachments, and embedded images stop displaying.

This is affecting over 150 employees and is very frustrating. We need help!

image <URL removed by staff>

[BarryH55]

multiple users in my company (Google Workspace subscription) have the same problem. Fix it soon please!

Added "testing" .... using Google Gmail (not Workspace user / free version user) doing same work with embedded file does NOT automatically change the item to png attached file. One staffer and I did this test multiple times and change did not happen.

Did anybody found other posts about the problem?

[BarryH55]

The "work around" / working technique my staff are using is to manually copy the whole existing email then paste this into a new message (plus do the same for subject). With the prior part the staffer then types / adds the new stuff / reply stuff.

[kvngo94]

I am having the same problem, please help how to avoid this

[KAM]

Interesting, I just sent an email from outside the Google ecosystem using Thunderbird and the image inline.

I then forwarded it from the Gmail Webclient back to outside.  Upon doing so, the image was now attached but had a disposition of inline:

--0000000000002bd44b06296362be
Content-Type: image/png; name="1870-screenshot.png"
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="1870-screenshot.png"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: <part1.GD2BhTjn.hQD1LDEv@pccc.com>
X-Attachment-Id: ii_193cfb6740fa98723ce1

And I had this but thunderbird didn't show it.  

    <img src=3D"cid:ii_193cfb6740fa98723ce1">

 Checking other content inline delivery (CID) images in emails, this seems to be the right format.

I'm confused as well. -KAM

[md4]

Gmail apparently puts wrong image reference to email body. It should be equal to Content-ID: header of the image, but instead it’s equal to proprietary X-Attachment-Id: which is not recognized by any standard email client.

We’ve opened a support case

[BarryH55]

Thank you for opening the support case.

[amit777]

Yes, this is happening again for some reason.  Started within the last couple days I think.  A person sends an email with an inline image.  When you reply the email from gmail, the images are removed from being inline and then attached.

[KAM]

Do you see a broken image where the inline image should be?  The version I synthesized had a content inline delivery (CID) image attached and a img src referencing the CID but didn't work.  I think there might be a minor syntax issue that I am just not familiar with.  Has anyone opened a ticket to have it looked at? -KAM

[anhvancodon]

Vấn đề này tôi cũng hơi ngạc nhiên để tôi tìm hiểu và phản hồi sau nhé!

"null"

[plaindesign]

This was a problem for us in 2023 and has just started happening again. I hope it gets fixed soon. In the meantime we have found a temporary work around for sending attachments. Once the email is written we click off the window which then saves it as a draft. We then re-visit the draft which gives us the ability to delete the rogue attachments and attach the file we wish to send. It isn't ideal as the inline images are lost but it helps if you need to send an attachment without the receiver being confused as to which attachment they should be looking at.

If we don't use the draft method above and just reply, the composed email looks fine with the attachments as they should be, it is only after the email is sent we see all the inline images attached.

[AlexRose]

Sounds like a recent change or issue with how Gmail (or your email client) is handling inline images in replies/forwards. It seems the Content-ID is being lost and the image is treated as an attachment instead. This might be related to a software update or a change in how your email client processes embedded images. You could try clearing cache, checking for updates, or testing in a different email client to see if the issue persists. It might also be worth reaching out to Google support if this behavior started suddenly and consistently after a specific update.

[Hubert]

I was informed that Google had fixed the problem.

[mahi233]

This has been a long standing issues in our Workspace: In all emails where users have used the Gmail app (iOS & Android) on their mobile to reply, the inline images have been dropped into attachments, and there seems to be no way around this. The messages stay HTML encoded (instead of turning into plain text) and they look fine still while writing a reply but something happens after sending. And afterwards, even in the Gmail app's Sent folder the images are now out of the body.

We do use Workspace Sync for Outlook, but I doubt this could mess things up in pure mobile app use.