8

I would swear that was possible in earlier versions of Outlook:

  1. Open New Email in Outlook
  2. Ensure HTML Format
  3. Drag .png file from Windows Explorer into the email

I wish the email is now part of the message but in fact the picture is an attachment.

Is it possible to drop images into an HTML message?

7
  • Does it only act this way with PNG's, or do JPG's act the same way? What bit-depth is the PNG (PNG24, or PNG32 kind of thing)? Do you have Word set as your editor in Outlook? Mar 6, 2013 at 19:48
  • gif, jpeg, all the same, land as attachments.
    – joh
    Mar 6, 2013 at 19:49
  • If you use "Insert-->Picture" does it insert it in-line? Mar 6, 2013 at 19:52
  • yes, insert picture works as expected.
    – joh
    Mar 6, 2013 at 19:55
  • You're only trying to drag'n'drop 1 image at a time correct? Mar 6, 2013 at 20:00

1 Answer 1

3
+50

Add "Copy as image" to the Explorer context menu. Paste in Outlook.

Part 1: nircmd

Use the utility nircmd to copy the file to the clipboard as an image. Then, paste the image into Outlook.

nircmd.exe clipboard copyimage <filename>

Part 2: Add to context-menu

For efficiency, consider adding this as a context (right-click) menu item.

  1. Download and extract nircmd to C:\utils
  2. Create the registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Copy as image\command
  3. Set the (default) value of the key to C:\utils\nircmdc.exe clipboard copyimage "%1"

This add "Copy as image" to the context menu for all files (not just images). If the file is not an image, the command does not copy anything.

For this solution to work only for specific file types, perform the steps above and replace the asterisk in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\ with the file type in a special key (example: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.png\).

4
  • This is excellent but the context menu item doesn't show up when I put it under specific extensions. e.g. [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.jpg\shell\Copy as image\command]
    – Still.Tony
    May 10, 2017 at 16:04
  • 1
    Oops! I had the path wrong. It should be HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.png. See edit.
    – Steven
    May 10, 2017 at 20:54
  • I'd also suggest extracting to C:\windows (or someplace already on path) because C:\utils isn't standard and adds a "go edit your path environment variable" step. ..Although if one is venturing into fixes like this, it's best to have a separate folder for things added to path.
    – Still.Tony
    May 11, 2017 at 12:01
  • You don't need it in your PATH variable if you specify the full path: C:\...\whatever.exe
    – Steven
    May 11, 2017 at 13:02

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .