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 Windows OS Hub / Microsoft Office / Outlook Not Showing Embedded Images in Emails

March 22, 2024

Outlook Not Showing Embedded Images in Emails

Users often complain that Outlook doesn’t display (download) attached or linked images in the email body. Instead of images/photos, red X crosses are shown in the email. In this article, we will look at the basic Outlook settings that allow you to enable or disable displaying pictures in emails.

Enable Automatic Images Download in Outlook

By default, Outlook doesn’t automatically download embedded images in the e-mail body that refer to URLs on third-party sites. Instead of images, Outlook displays a red X and this warning:

Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.

Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet

You can download pictures in an email one by one or all at once by clicking on the title in the email header.

Click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of some pictures in this message.

outlook not displaying images - download picture manually

Outlook automatically downloads pictures in e-mail messages from senders (domains) that you trust. You can add a sender to your trusted list by clicking the message status bar and selecting Add Sender (or Domain) to the Safe Sender List.

You can add a sender to the trusted list via Junk -> Junk E-mail Options -> Safe Senders -> Add.

Enter the sender’s email address, or use the format @woshub.com– if you want to trust all emails from this domain. Also, check the option “Also trust email from my Contacts”.

outlook - add senders to save list

You can enable automatic downloading of pictures in Outlook (not secure!!!) File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings -> uncheck “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items”.

This configuration is not safe because Outlook will always try to download all the images from external websites. It’s better to restrict the ability to download images to a list of trusted senders.

Outlook - Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items

Outlook also doesn’t show images when viewing plain text email messages. To turn off plain text view mode for email, go to File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings -> E-mail Security and make sure that the “Read all standard mail in plain text” option is disabled.

disable default plain text view for email in outlook

Configure Internet Access Setting in Outlook

If Outlook cannot access an image file on an external resource, a red X with a warning appears in the e-mail instead of the linked image.

The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file and location.

outlook red x: The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file and location

If an image in an e-mail references an HTTPS URL, check that your Windows security settings do not prevent images from being downloaded from HTTPS websites.

Open the Internet Properties Panel (run the inetcpl.cpl command), go to the Advanced tab, uncheck the Do not save encrypted files to disk option, and restart Outlook.

ie setting - Do not save encrypted files to disk

Also check that your Internet settings allow you to use the TLS 1.2 protocol.

This setting can be disabled via the registry:

reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" /v DisableCachingOfSSLPages /t reg_dword /d 00000000 /f

Or via the GPO option: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer -> Internet Control Panel -> Advanced Page -> Do not save encrypted pages = Disabled.

GPO: don't save encrypted pages

Then check your Windows proxy settings (if you have incorrect proxy settings on your computer, Outlook won’t be able to download images from the Internet). If you are not using a proxy to access the Internet, check that the proxy server is disabled (Settings -> Network and Internet -> Proxy). The Use a proxy server option must be disabled.

disable proxy serve in windows

Suppose you are connected to the Internet through a proxy server with Basic authentication (used quite rarely). In that case, Outlook cannot open HTTP links to images, because authentication is required to access them through a proxy. However, Outlook does not prompt for a password to authenticate a user on the proxy server.

In this case, go to the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common and create a REG_DWORD parameter with the name AllowImageProxyAuth and the value 2. This setting causes Outlook to prompt for a user credential for authentication (once per Outlook session).

This is a registry path for Outlook versions 2021/2019/2016/Outlook 365.

You may also see a red X icon instead of the images if the BlockHTTPimages parameter in the reg key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\x.0\Common is set to 1. Remove this registry entry and restart Outlook.

set BlockHTTPimages registry parameter to unblock images in outlook

Clear the Cache in Outlook

Outlook may not show images in e-mail messages if the Temporary Internet Files folder is full or damaged. In this case, the easiest way is to recreate the temporary folder.

Log on to the computer using a different account that has administrative privileges and delete the C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache directory of the problem user.

INetCache clear outlook cache

This removes temporary files of Word, Excel, and other Microsoft apps.

When you open any attachments, Outlook saves attachment files and images to a cache folder. Outlook may stop displaying pictures when the size of the cache directory exceeds a certain limit. In this case, you need to clean up the cache folder.

Get the path to the Outlook cache directory from the registry using the PowerShell command:

$OutlookTempFolder = (Get-ItemProperty -Path HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Security| select OutlookSecureTempFolder).OutlookSecureTempFolder

Get OutlookSecureTempFolder parh

The path to the Outlook cache directory looks like this in my case: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\xxxxx\. Open this directory, delete the contents (Get-ChildItem $OutlookTempFolder| Remove-Item -Recurse -Force), and then restart Outlook.

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16 comments

Chris January 12, 2020 - 4:41 pm

I could not disable the Microsoft Password Login page on Boot Up (Win 10 new installation)…UNTIL…I found your website. I tried MANY other websites “solutions”, NONE of which worked and were mostly trying to sell something…..THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! for the simple , straight forward, solution to this problem!! I am the only person who will ever access my computer and found it quite frustrating to have to sign in with a password EVERY TIME I wanted to use it. I am now a subscriber!!

Reply
admin January 15, 2020 - 7:57 am

It’s great! but you were left a comment on the wrong post 🙂

Reply
Liam March 12, 2020 - 3:38 am

After a similar situation to the above post, I found myself closing many tabs of ‘solutions’ to this Outlook issue that I had, none of which were as comprehensive or as helpful as this post.
Thank you for explaining the multiple different solutions in such a clear and concise manner and for helping me solve my problem. I believe for me it was was the Temporary Internet Files iNetCache deletion solution that helped.
Cheers!

Reply
Courtney May 6, 2020 - 4:32 pm

I jumped the gun when reading and clicked “show picture placeholders” and now the option doesn’t even show up. How can I change this?

Reply
admin May 7, 2020 - 3:22 pm

Create a new mail item. Then go to the File -> Options -> Mail -> Editor Options -> Advanced, uncheck the box “Show Picture Placeholders”. Close the message to apply it globally.

Reply
Paul April 21, 2021 - 6:24 pm

This was the fix that worked for me after trying all the different fixes. Thanks you admin for posting this

Reply
Mike February 13, 2021 - 8:55 pm

This was the most complete post I have seen on this. I have tried all the suggestions except the regedit changes for the simple reason every registry entry that I have seen referenced as the issue on this does not exist in my registry (Windows 8.1). Soooooooooooooo, now what?

Note: I have tried the “view in browser” option to see the email in a browser and discovered it uses Internet Explorer – which ALSO does not display the pictures. I researched this issue ‘cuz I figured the problem must be in IE, and sure enough, I found a post that says, basically, IE cannot render a picture if the url of the picture doesn’t correspond to the url of the sender. There does not seem to be a solution for this. Also, I tried to see if I could use a different browser (Edge, Firefox) with Outlook but no-go.

Frickin’ frustrating!

Reply
Tyson July 31, 2021 - 4:53 pm

Mike, I have the exact same problem and have tried all the solutions that you have. Did you ever resolve this? Thx

Reply
Addie Belcher August 11, 2021 - 3:05 pm

Thank you! The trick for me was unchecking “Do not save encrypted files to disk”. MAde that change, restarted outlook and FINALLY, things are right after two years and trying ten other things…

Reply
Steve Harper August 16, 2021 - 8:24 pm

After trying multiple “fixes” I discovered my problem was quite simple. I had deleted IE a few weeks ago when I installed Brave as my browser. It turns out IE is required for Outlook to download images. Who knew. I reloaded IE and it now works normally.

Reply
Chris Strasser September 17, 2021 - 12:34 am

OMG. Thank you do much! I don’t know how “placeholders” got turned on with my Outlook, but I would have never found that on my own.

Reply
Christie December 19, 2021 - 2:43 pm

I have tried all of these things…. Using OUtlook 365 and Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge, nothing is working… so frustrated. This is not in my registry….BlockHTTPimages so that is the only thing I haven’t tried since it is not there? Is it possible to add that to the registry?

Reply
Steve April 4, 2023 - 7:49 pm

Christie – that is my problem too. Did you ever find an answer??

Reply
Tech_guy July 12, 2022 - 7:38 pm

Unchecking ‘do not save encrypted pages to disk’ in IE internet options, did the trick for me.
Many Thanks!

Reply
serg December 23, 2022 - 3:16 am

Thanks! Looks like my IE proxy settings needs some changes.

Reply
Roger Krimsky June 14, 2023 - 5:01 pm

Followed everything and problem still persists. Allows pictures on most website emails. Does not allow from Redfin.com. W7 Outlook 2016 HP p7-1287c Computer

Reply

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