There are four causes of pictures not displaying in Microsoft Outlook email messages:
- Internet Options setting for saving encrypted pages to disk (below)
- Blocking external content
- Red X's in Email / SecureTemp folder is "full"
- Word's Picture placeholder setting enabled (below)
Internet Options Encrypted Page Setting
Note: Outlook uses Internet Options settings, not Edge settings.
Open Internet Options, either by typing Internet Options on the start menu or opening it from the Control panel.
Look under the Security section for Do not save encrypted files to disk. Untick this setting and Apply. Restart Outlook and you should be fixed. (If you don't use Internet Explorer, you can go to Control panel, Internet Options or just type Internet Options in the Start menu Search.)
Thanks to William for sharing this with us.
Check the Picture Placeholder setting
If you do not see a red x but have a blank box shaped/sized like the graphic or photo, you have Show picture placeholders enabled. (A great feature if your Internet connection is slow.)
Note that this dialog is accessible from a COMPOSE MESSAGE window, not the main Outlook window!
Outlook 2010, 2013, 2016
These steps work for Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013, and Outlook 2016 (including Outlook which is included in Office 365 subscriptions).
- Click the New Email button or press Ctrl+N while viewing the Inbox.
- Go to the new message's File, Options dialog.
- Click Mail, then Editor Options
- Select Advanced and look near the bottom of the dialog for the option to Show Picture Placeholders.
- Uncheck the box to Show picture placeholders
- Close the dialog then close the message.
After changing the settings, close the message. Do not sent it! This, like many other message settings (zoom, etc), will apply only to the current message if you send it. You need to close the message to change the global setting.
In Outlook 2007
- While in a New message window
- Click the Office icon
- Click the Editor options button on the lower right of the dialog
- Select Advanced from the left menu of the Editor options dialog
- Scroll down to Display email contents section (near the bottom)
- Uncheck the box to Show picture placeholders
- Then click OK to apply and close the dialog.
- Close the message.
In older versions, this is an Internet Options setting, accessible from either IE's Tools menu or Control Panel. In the Internet Options dialog, go to the Advanced tab. The Show pictures option is in the Multimedia group, about halfway down.
Hi Diane,
I just wanted to say thank you. I had searched the internet for hours trying to find a solution to my Outlook 2016 no image display in email problem and your steps were easy to follow with great explanations and very intuitive. Problem fixed after following your steps above.
Thank you
Eric McCallum
Hi,
I have a user who receives QR codes and the QR codes will appear in some emails and some are just images with "X" in there. All QR codes appear fine in OWA.
I am using M365 Apps for Enterprise v. 2010 build 13328.20356 and am not seeing this option in the Mail > Advanced location. All I see is "Display" and the option to check this is not there. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
"Check the Picture Placeholder setting" worked fine - after weeks of trying to reset IE and other dead ends posted in other blogs. THANKS!!!
worx, thanks !
Excellent, very well and detailed explanation. Thanks
Thank youuuuuu!!!!
Hi Diane, I hope this reaches you. I tried to respond directly through the email link with your suggestion, but couldn't get anywhere.
I followed the steps you suggested and unclicked Picture Placeholder and that has corrected the issue for me. I am most grateful.
I hope you are well and safe.
What about outlook.com ?
Outlook on the web has different issues - when the images don't display and they are supposed to be downloaded, its often because the image is missing from the website or the url has an error.