Top 5 Ways to Fix Images Not Opening in Outlook

Email tracking is quite common in the advertising industry. When you open a marketing email, a lot of information is transferred to advertisers. Most of these tracking pixels are embedded in an image. Email providers like Outlook automatically block these images. During the process, you might have trouble accessing normal attached images. Here’s how you can fix pictures that won’t open in Outlook.

The problem is most common in the Outlook Windows application. When you open an email all you see are snapshots of broken images. Although the practice is to keep your PC safe, blocking images from trusted sources does not make sense. Let’s solve it.

1. Windows Outlook application

There are two ways to open pictures in Outlook Windows app. First, you can individually download images for one email or change Outlook settings to automatically download images for all emails.

Download images for a specific email

To help protect your privacy, Outlook blocks the downloading of preview images from all emails. If you trust the sender, you have the option to upload images for that specific email.

Step 1: Open an email you want to see images from.

2nd step: Find the option “Click here to upload images”. Click on it and Outlook will download the images for that specific email.

Make changes from Outlook settings

Outlook for Windows offers a Trust Center option to allow uploading of images to the app. Make some changes from Outlook settings.

Step 1: Open Outlook on Windows.

2nd step: Click on File at the top and go to Options.

Step 3: Select Trust Center Settings.

Step 4: Select Automatic download from the left sidebar.

Step 5: Uncheck the “Do not download images automatically in standard HTML emails or RSS items” check box.

Step 6: You can also uncheck the box next to “Do not download images in encrypted or signed HTML emails”.

Tap OK at the bottom and Outlook will start downloading and showing pictures. Once you start seeing pictures in Outlook app, right click on any picture you want to download and select Save as picture.

You will see that Outlook takes a long time to load an email because the app will download images first to show the live preview on the right side.

2. Outlook application for Mac

Outlook application for Mac offers an option to download pictures from the Internet or automatically block them. You can change the parameter change in the Preferences menu.

Step 1: Open Outlook on Mac.

2nd step: Click on Outlook in the menu bar.

Step 3: Go to Preferences.

Step 4: Select Read from the E-mail menu.

Step 5: Scroll down to “Automatically download images” in the Internet menu.

Step 6: Select the option ‘In all messages’ and close the menu.

Outlook will download and preview the image on the right side.

3. Outlook Web

If you are having trouble opening pictures on Outlook Web, there is an option to show attachments in the message list. Here is how to use it.

Step 1: Visit Outlook on the web and sign in using your Microsoft account details.

2nd step: Click Gear Setting at the top and open Outlook Settings.

Step 3: Select Mail and open the layout settings.

Step 4: Scroll down and select the “Show attachments in message list” option from the Online Previews menu.

Close the menu and Outlook will no longer block images in the app.

4. Try to forward an email

This trick has worked for many to restore Outlook pictures in app. Try to forward an email and Outlook will show the missing pictures in the forwarded email.

Try this trick and see if you can see stuck pictures in Outlook.

5. Disable third-party antivirus application

Sometimes some of the third-party antivirus applications can be too aggressive. Maybe they are the reason for Outlook pictures stuck on your computer.

You can temporarily disable the third-party antivirus application on Windows. Windows default security is enough for the majority to block malware and fake files from the web.

Start loading pictures in Outlook

Also, don’t forget to check the internet connection. Sometimes we miss such a basic trick to fix normal problems on the computer. Make sure you have a working internet connection and follow the above steps to start opening pictures in Outlook.