I’m becoming quite a convert to Google’s Gmail service, but miss one feature of my previous email client: the ability to embed graphics in my email messages. It’s a great way to include photos with annotations, and I want it. Can I hack Gmail to embed images??
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.
Thanks so much for this post. It helped me a lot! I’ve tried searching for a post about Inserting images and after a long look at all… this is the one that really helped me. Thanks again!
Thanks so much Dave! I was looking everywhere to try to figure out how to embed a photo into an email gmail that I can send to prospective clients (I’m a photographer and need to be able to embed images into my letters so they’ll be enticed to visit my site).
Even when you enable Labs, pasting into an email is STILL a hassle. It’s really not pasting at all, but rather more like creating an attachment except you can see it in the email’s body. So the results are better, but it’s much more work than copy-paste. Especially if your originating graphics aren’t already on the web. (not everyone just copies from other websites you know). So what you do is use Snagit to capture, and SEND it to a Screencast.com plugin. Then, as it sends it to Screencast, quickly click the link before it disappears. This takes you to the pic you just uploaded to Screencast. Highlight it and copy it. THEN and only THEN can you just paste it into a gmail. Works great, and almost like copy and paste. Good luck.
Any way to make the image clickable? i.e., enable the reader to click on it and view a different URL? via javascript or a simple link?
Good article… one correction
The beaker isn’t visible unless you have at least one labs function active. If you don’t, then you need to go to Settings –> Labs and enable a feature to see the little green beaker.