Have you ever clicked on a message to open it and then waited for several minutes while that little spinner goes round and round trying to download the attachments?
I recently received an email that contained twenty-nine
pictures, and it took just under five minutes to download. In the meantime I couldn't perform any other
functions on the computer, so I was forced to sit and watch the spinning
circle. That wasn't the first time it
has happened, but it was bothersome enough to spur me into writing a column
about it.
If you are a savvy sender and you already know how to attach
and forward pictures, cartoons and other graphics, then please ignore this
column. My goal is to reach out to
those who aren't sure how to do it, or just plain "don't know."
There are three basic rules to forwarding attachments:
- Be stingy - don't send too many in one message
- If your mail server provides it, send graphics in the body of the message, not as attachments that have to be clicked on to open them
- Send the message to yourself first to "test" it whenever possible
Let's cover these three in more depth. When I say "be stingy" I mean you
should try to only send ten or less pictures or pages in one message. If you need to send more, break the message
up and send it in parts. Some pictures
can be reduced in size so that they don't take up as much apace. A good rule is that if it is larger than one
gigabyte or has more than 1080 pixels on the largest side, it needs to be
reduced if possible. Right-clicking on
the picture will give you that information, and there are programs that you can
use to do the reduction very quickly.
A good rule of thumb is that, if the image won't fit on your
screen without a slider bar to view it, it is probably too large. Any picture can be reduced in size by
left-clicking on it, placing the cursor over a corner until a slanted arrow
appears and moving your cursor toward the center of the picture to make the
image smaller. When you release the
cursor with your mouse, the picture will stabilize at that size and the slider
bar should disappear. Sometimes you will even see what size the image is in pixel
counts as you move the arrow.
Rule 2: My two mail servers provide a way to include the picture or
attachment right in the body of the message.
Yours probably has that option too.
Comcast has a box at the bottom of the attachment pop up screen that you
can check to "Show images in message body." In Gmail, putting your
cursor where you want to display the image and clicking on the icon for
pictures will enable you to place it in the body for viewing with the message
text. You might need to experiment if you have a different server, but there
will be something similar in there to include images in the message body. Nobody should have to click on an attachment
to open and view the image.
When you want to send pictures from some other document or
message, you must first right-click on that image to get a pop up menu with
"Save Image As..." or some form of that command. Left-click on that command and place the
image in your Pictures file.
(I created a folder labeled "Forwards" to hold
those images temporarily until I choose to delete them) After you have saved all of the images you
want to include as attachments, follow the above steps to insert them into the
body of your message.
Rule 3 is something I try to do with messages that have
images which I am uncertain will go through for viewing. Sometimes I want to send a message that
already has attached images in the message body, but I'm not sure it will
transmit those images. I simply send it
to myself first to see what comes through.
If it works, then I add the addresses for those I want to send it to (always
in bcc:) and resend it to them. If it
doesn't come through, then I can rework it, using the above techniques, and
forward it. Alternately, I sometimes
create my own message from scratch, copying and pasting text and attaching the
images as above, because it is usually easier than forwarding someone else's
message.
I hope this little tutorial has been helpful to you, but if
you have any questions that I can answer, or if I can clarify any of the
instructions for you, don't hesitate to let me know
