email – The Graphic Mac

Force Apple’s Mail to add images as attachments

James — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 15:00:08 +0000

One of the longest-standing complaints I see about Apple’s Mail app is that it places any images you drag into an email as inline images (which means the image appears in the email wherever you actually drag & dropped it) instead of as a standard attachment (which appears as an icon at the bottom of the email regardless of where you drag & drop it). The problem is that inline images (and PDFs) don’t always work well with all email apps on the receiving end. Some people complain that the image quality gets degredated, and in some cases the image doesn’t come through at all.

Apple doesn’t offer a way to change the feature easily. You can choose the “Send Windows Friendly Attachment” option when attaching the file, and even right-click on the image and choose “View as Icon” – and it’s still iffy if it’ll work.

Cheap Solution (works better)

Clive Galeni has the only GUI solution I could find called AntiInline. It’s a plugin for Apple’s Mail app and it solves the problem perfectly. Once turned on in the Mail preferences, all files placed in an email (regardless of how you do it) show up as true attachments at the bottom of the email.

AntiInline also has the option of allowing to keep images in your email signature remain as inline images so they show up the way you would expect. You just have to include “email-signature” (without quotes) in the filename of your signature image.

AntiInline is offered in a version for macOS ElCapitan, Sierra and High Sierra and costs $14.90 and runs on up to three Macs per license.

Free Solution (works, but works too well)

There is a FREE solution, and it’s simple if you’re familiar with using the Terminal app. Fire-up the terminal and enter the following:
defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes
Just know that this turns off inline images entirely, including any images you may have in your email signature. To revert back to the default inline mode, simply replace the “yes” at the end with the word “false” (without quotes).

I’m not a fan of images in email signatures, so I’ve decided to just turn off images completely using the Terminal code method.

Latest Apple ID spam/scam just not quite up to standards

James — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 15:00:42 +0000

Riiiiiight. I received this beauty yesterday. Imma get right on this secure my account thing… since you know, they said please!

“Outside the box” header design

James — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 15:00:17 +0000

Everyone expects to see an image header at the top of an email or website. You can spark interest by breaking out of the boxy design. Take a look at these non-rectangular headers for some inspiration.

What’s the best size for fonts in email, web & TV?

James — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:00:28 +0000

Just because it looks great and is readable on YOUR screen, doesn’t mean that’s the case for your viewers. I like to stick with 14-16 point text for emails and web, and about 28-32 for PowerPoint/Keynote presentations being viewed on large-screen HDTVs. Anything smaller and you run the risk of your carefully crafted text being unreadable. There are exceptions, of course—but I almost always stick with those sizes.

Font sizes for the web: It’s all about the x-height

There’s actually a science behind the best font size for the web. There’s a lot of geeky gibberish in the article (which I personally found interesting), so if you don’t care about all that just scroll down to the bottom of the article and you’ll find a chart of recommended sizes for desktop, laptop, phone and TV viewing.

Where to find email Drafts on your iPhone

James — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:00:45 +0000

When you don’t have time to finish typing an email on your iPhone, you can hit the Cancel button and save the email as a Draft to finish it later. What’s not obvious is where to actually find the email Draft once the window closes.

Your email Drafts are hidden under the Compose icon at the bottom right of the iPhone screen. Simply tap and hold the Compose icon to bring up a list of your email drafts, then tap on the one you want to continue typing.

Google announces new way to screw with your email

James — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:00:02 +0000

I’m not sure what people’s fascination with making the email process into anything but email, but apparently Google is on board. Gmail wasn’t bad enough, now there’s Google Inbox. I wonder how long it’ll be before they kill this, too.

Free email newsletter PSD templates

James — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:00:16 +0000

FreePSDFiles has a collection of three great email newsletter templates in PSD format. Fully layered files make it easy to customize to fit your client’s color scheme and artwork. These files are free for personal or commercial use.

Infographic: The ridiculous cost of email

James — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:00:08 +0000

Email hasn’t changed in twenty years. This infographic reveals just how inefficient and time-consuming business email has become.

Courtesy of: Contatta

Write full emails using Siri on your iPhone

James — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:00:24 +0000

If you thought Siri was a gimmicky feature of iOS, think again—you can do more than schedule an appointment, check game scores, and search the web.

Paul over at OSXDaily has posted a simple tutorial to show you how to use Siri to author a complete email without touching the keyboard on your iPhone.

The trickiest part of using Siri is remember the commands necessary to use Siri to do a ton of different things.

In defense of email

James — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 21:00:58 +0000

Interesting read. I’ve worked for a few companies that tried having an “email-free day,” and even one that tried substituting various web-based messaging services for it. None have worked. Personally, I think it’s because people are too hung-up on sharing & communicating, and tend to procrastinate.

TechCrunch shared some interesting thoughts In Defense of Email.