How to view images in HTML Email
using Outlook Express

Outlook Express, the most popular email client around (primarily because it comes included with Windows by Microsoft) is often set to "Block images and other external content". While this is a good choice for avoiding certain kinds of spam, it will make many newsletters and other interesting emails ugly and/or even unreadable. With this setting enabled you are apt to see huge holes or squares with red X's in your emails.

You may see images in some emails you receive but not others... why is that?

Because some people send emails with the images inline... that is, as part of the email content. However this takes a lot of bandwidth on the part of the sender, particularly in the case of Internet newsletters with a large subscription base. Thus many newsletters and other Internet based email business will send emails with the images all linked from the server which OE considers "external content". Thus, you only load them when you view the email, just as you only see images on a website when you click on a link and go to that website with your web browser.

This is unfortunate, but it is possible to modify this setting easily for better viewing of specific emails... emails like the Rose City Software newsletter, for example.

Simply go to the Tools menu in Outlook Express and select Options down at the bottom. On the Security tab as indicated in the screenshot below, uncheck the box next to "Block images and other external content".

That will do it! Now you can enjoy the newsletter as it was intended to be viewed. For viewing emails where you do not know the sender, it may be wise to restore this setting. Images cannot hurt you, but if encoded by the sender with the recipient's email address, as some spammers do, this can let the spammer know you saw his email.

For this reason we have tens of thousands of users of our Courier Email client. Among the many, many advantages of Courier, is the ability to receive email as plain text by default (the safest way BY FAR to receive email, and then simply toggle on HTML with a convenient toolbar button when it is an email where you WANT to view the images. Visit the Courier homepage for more information about the great free email client from Rose City Software.

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We hope you have enjoyed this brief tutorial. If so drop us a quick note and let us know! And why not try some of our award-winning software products, all designed with the same goal in mind... to enhance your productivity and computing experience on the Windows platform!