Can I embed graphic images or photos in my Google Gmail mail?

No hacking involved, fortunately, Google's just released a "Gmail Labs" extension called "Inserting Images" that lets you do exactly what you want, though, of course, if the recipients' email system doesn't support embedded images in email messages it's not going to work properly. But then again, that's a problem with all apps that will let you embed graphics, isn't it? :-)

To get this working, you need to click on the little lab beaker icon that sits on the top of your Gmail interface and that you probably have never clicked on before.

It looks like this:

Once you click on that, you'll see the many, many different extensions to Gmail that are available. I have about a half-dozen enabled, myself, but let's just scroll down to near the bottom, where you'll find:

Choose "Enable" then scroll to the very bottom and click on "Save Changes". Now you've added a new capability to your Gmail interface. Easy, eh?

I'll send a quick message and show you how this works, as it's delightfully easy to use too. Here's a message I'm writing and the cursor is poised over the tiny picture icon, as you can see:

When I click on it, a rather stark looking window pops up:

You can reference an image that's already online (useful if you want to use images from, say, Flickr) but we're going to upload an image to include in the email. Click on "Choose File" and you'll get a regular, standard old file selection window:

I want to include "chop-shop-one-sheet.jpeg" so that's what I'll select, then click on "Choose". Very quickly the file is uploaded to Google's Gmail server and I see:

That's exactly what I want, so I'll click on "Add Image", and:

Notice that Gmail gives you a tiny little toolbar letting you resize the image or even remove it. That toolbar will vanish when the image isn't selected, which is nice.

Finally, I wrap up the composition, press "Send" and when the email is received (in this case, in Microsoft Entourage) it looks splendid:

Just what I wanted! And that, dear reader, is how you embed graphics, photographs or other images in your Gmail messages.