Groups > alt.comp.software.thunderbird > #16097

Re: Pasting photos in html emails

From	VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
Newsgroups	alt.comp.software.thunderbird, alt.comp.software.firefox
Subject	Re: Pasting photos in html emails
Date	2025-03-20 17:36 -0500
Organization	Usenet Elder
Message-ID	<shd63fwx141j.dlg@v.nguard.lh> (permalink)
References	<09cualxkvk.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <vri2le$181m$1@dont-email.me>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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"Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> wrote:

> When you paste into email, email programs do not handle photos
> literally.  They translate them into base64 code.  Base64 has the
> each 8bit byte of the image translated to ascii characters that can
> be easily sent via email programs.  The problem as you have noticed
> is the overhead is huge.

ALL e-mail is sent as text characters.  ALL.  Not some, not most, but
ALL e-mail is text.  No binary content is allowed at all.  Attachments
in e-mails are not the original file.  Attachments get encoded
(transformed) into a MIME part as a long text string, and that encoding
bloats the original content by 133%, or much more.  Look at the raw
source of any e-mail with an attachment, like a binary (e.g., image).
You won't find the binary content anywhere inside the e-mail.  You will
find MIME parts (content-disposition=attach or inline are hints to the
e-mail client how to present the attachment) in the body of the message
where the binary content got encoded into a long text string.  E-mail
was never designed to be a file transfer venue despite users trying to
use it that way.  

MIME got added to allow the addition of non-ASCII text in messages
(i.e., language support), and to allow e-mail to carry non-text content
as attachments.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2045

> One workaround, other than your first find, would be to 'save image
> as', then attach it to your email.  This would work if you were
> writing to say: "See my new car" and you attached the image.   Not so
> well though if  you wanted to disperse images all though the email. 
> I think your plan is the better, as long as the links don't rot.

Sending just the URL of an image is polite.  The recipient gets to
decide whether to see the online image or not rather than wasting the
bandwidth and disk space (in both sender's and recipient's mailboxes on
their servers and in the clients) to get an e-mail with content they may
not want.  Including huge attachments could result in consuming a
recipient's mailbox to its max quota preventing receipt of further
e-mails until the recipient deletes the bloated e-mail.

However, copying the link to an image in a web page may not always work.
Some sites dislike direct links to their content, or the URL won't work
later in a dynamic web page (aka Javascripted).  When that happens, you
may still be able to save the image to a local file, upload to online
storage, and then give a URL to that location.  Using Javascript events,
a site can disable right-clicking on an image to prevent saving a local
copy.  Sites may try to block theft of their content.

Thread

Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-20 22:00 +0100
  Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> - 2025-03-20 17:51 -0400
    Re: Pasting photos in html emails VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-03-20 17:36 -0500
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-03-21 06:15 -0400
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-03-21 18:52 -0500
          Re: Pasting photos in html emails bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-03-22 22:22 -0400
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-21 12:39 +0100
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2025-03-21 18:57 -0500
          Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-22 15:32 +0100
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-21 17:08 +0000
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-22 15:34 +0100
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> - 2025-03-21 17:05 -0700
  Re: Pasting photos in html emails Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-03-21 06:40 +0000
    Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-21 12:41 +0100
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2025-03-21 11:48 +0000
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-21 13:59 +0100
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails Retirednoguilt <HapilyRetired@fakeaddress.com> - 2025-03-21 09:27 -0400
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-21 15:07 +0100
          Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-21 11:31 -0500
            Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-21 17:17 +0000
              Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-21 15:59 -0500
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-22 16:43 +0000
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-22 16:26 -0500
            Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-22 15:35 +0100
              Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-22 16:40 -0500
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-23 19:50 +0000
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-24 01:36 -0500
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-24 11:50 +0100
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-24 18:32 +0000
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-03-21 11:33 -0400
          Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-21 17:24 +0000
            Re: Pasting photos in html emails Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> - 2025-03-22 16:47 +0000
              Re: Pasting photos in html emails Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-03-22 13:31 -0400
              Re: Pasting photos in html emails Char Jackson <none@none.invalid> - 2025-03-22 16:10 -0500
                Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-22 23:50 +0100
  Re: Pasting photos in html emails Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-03-21 08:17 -0400
    Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-21 15:12 +0100
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-03-21 11:30 -0400
        Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-03-22 15:40 +0100
  Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-05-27 14:32 +0200
    Re: Pasting photos in html emails knuttle <keith_nuttle@yahoo.com> - 2025-05-27 09:34 -0400
      Re: Pasting photos in html emails "Carlos E. R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-05-27 16:07 +0200

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