Image attachments are not loading, attaching, or downloading

Question

Image attachments are not loading, attaching, or downloading

Christy04 0

Hello. I can not preview images other people email me or ones that I attach to an email myself, my co-worker also mentioned that she could not receive the image I sent. I can not download the images either, getting an error message. If I try to move the image to the message body it just disappears.

Screenshot 2026-09-09 113847.png

Screenshot 2026-09-09 113908.png

Screenshot 2026-09-09 113816.png

Chris-D 1,180 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-09-10T22:52:46.51+00:00

Hi Christy04,

I’m reaching out to follow up on this issue. Have you had an opportunity to review the information I provided earlier? Any update from your side would be greatly appreciated.

If you have already tried the suggested options and the issue still persists, the best course of action would be to contact your IT department for further support.

2 answers

Your answer

Chris-D 1,180 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-09-10T22:52:46.51+00:00

Hi Christy04,

I’m reaching out to follow up on this issue. Have you had an opportunity to review the information I provided earlier? Any update from your side would be greatly appreciated.

If you have already tried the suggested options and the issue still persists, the best course of action would be to contact your IT department for further support.

Answer 1

For Outlook on the web, the symptoms described point to an attachment/image handling issue rather than a simple picture-download setting.

Use this troubleshooting path:

Test in an InPrivate/Incognito browser window.
Open Outlook on the web in a private session and try the same image again. If it works there, clear the browser cache for the normal session.
Test a different browser.
If the issue happens in one browser only, the problem is likely browser-specific.
Test a different network, such as a mobile hotspot.
If images or attachments work on another network, the current firewall, proxy, or network path is likely blocking preview or download.
Check whether the problem affects all attachments or only images.
If PDFs, Word files, and other attachments also fail, this is broader than image rendering.
Check whether the issue affects both received images and images attached to new messages.
Since attached images disappear when moved into the message body, also verify the message format:
- In Outlook for Windows, Insert > Pictures can be unavailable or fail in plain text format.
- In new Outlook, check Options > Format and confirm the message is HTML, not Plain Text.
Ask the sender to resend one test message with the image again.
A corrupted original message or attachment can cause preview and download failures.
If desktop Outlook works but Outlook on the web does not, use desktop Outlook as a temporary workaround for opening or downloading the images.

Relevant product behaviors from the documented issues:

In Outlook on the web, blocked attachments can appear as a generic placeholder such as “1 Attachment” and may not open.
In Outlook mobile, externally linked internet images do not load automatically when Block external images is enabled.
In classic Outlook, a known issue after the May 12, 2026 updates caused some inline images in emails, newsletters, or signatures to show a red X or “The linked image cannot be displayed”; this issue was fixed in later builds.

If the issue occurs in Outlook on the web across browsers, across networks, and for multiple attachment types, that indicates a service-side or mailbox-specific problem rather than a local image setting.

References:

Answer 2

Hi Christy04,

Thank you for sharing the details of your situation and the screenshots.

To help narrow down the cause, here are some steps you can try:

Sign out of Outlook on the web, open an InPrivate or Incognito browser window, sign in again, and test the image attachment.
Try using another supported browser, such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.
Temporarily disable any browser extensions, particularly ad blockers, privacy extensions, or download managers, by going to your browser menu > Extensions > Manage extensions and turning off the relevant extensions. Then restart the browser and test Outlook on the web again.
Test with a newly created, small JPG or PNG image saved locally on your device. Please use a simple file name, such as test.jpg.
Create a new email rather than replying to or forwarding an existing message, then attach the test image and send it to yourself or a colleague.
Open the test message from your Sent Items folder and check whether the image is still attached and whether you can preview or download it.
If available, test the same image using the Outlook desktop application or Outlook mobile app. This can help determine whether the issue is limited to Outlook on the web.

As a temporary workaround, you may upload the image to OneDrive and send the recipient a sharing link.

If the issue persists across different browsers, devices, or Outlook applications, please reach out to your organization’s IT administrator for further investigation. The administrator can check message trace, quarantine, mail flow rules, and security policies that may be affecting image attachments.

When contacting your IT administrator, please provide the exact download error message, the image format and file size, the approximate time the affected email was sent, and the results of the troubleshooting steps above.

For your IT admin reference: Message trace in the new EAC in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn
In case you do not know who is your IT admin, kindly refer to this article: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support

I hope this information is helpful. Should you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please feel free to share them in the comment below. I'm very happy to help.

If the answer is helpful, please click 'Yes' and kindly upvote it.

Note: Please follow the steps in the forum documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.