There are four causes of pictures not displaying in Microsoft Outlook email messages:
- Internet Explorer setting for saving encrypted pages to disk (below)
- Blocking external content
- 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 from the Control panel. You can also open it through Internet Explorer's (Tools), Internet Options, Advanced menu.
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.
I've got a good one perhaps someone has seen before. Outlook displays a banner prompting the user to download images, but there are no actual images in the message, and the sender's domain is in the safe sender list. I've never seen that...very odd.
Best guess is there is a tracking link hidden in it - this is most common with bulk/commercial mail but there are applications that can do it for regular folks so they don't need to request read receipts.
if this is the cause, when you look at the message source, you'll see the tracking code.
I'm using Outlook 7 with Windows 10. I use Google and Edge as browsers.
I've been that way for a couple of years. All of the sudden I couldn't get pictures to download. I read this discussion and I determined 3 of four potential problems were OK. I was afraid to delete my TIF's (there's more than one and I didn't know the correct name (several in the INetcache folder). What I did was repair MS Office 2007. Now I can download. Let's see how long that lasts.
Thank you for the help! It was in the Internet Options thingie I had to change it. Finally it works again!!! 100000... tnx :)
Tried the above but still no pictures just view in web browser, and the linked image cannot be displayed etc, etc.
You also check this page? https://www.slipstick.com/problems/red-xs-in-email/
Thank you a thousand times. I can now get my pictures
Thanks a lot!
For me, the first method worked just fine. I have Outlook 2007 and Windows 10.
This solution doesn't work. Brand new ThinkPad with Windows 10, Outlook 2016. For one thing, the checkbox was never checked to begin with.
I tried everything you suggested and nothing worked. I have brand new HP computer and Office 365 with outlook 2016.
What next?
Do you see the red X or a blank where the pictures should be?
I will check to see if there are other possible solutions, but AFAIK, it's just the ones on this page.