Despite WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook Messenger, email remains as popular as ever for sending and receiving messages, files, and – most importantly – pictures. However, it may not always be obvious to those new to Android phones or tablets how to attach pictures to an email.
This tutorial walks you through, step-by-step, the most efficient ways to attach a picture to an email on Android. You can use these instructions to attach images to emails in any number of Android-compatible email apps, including (but not limited to): Outlook, Gmail, Samsung Email.
To learn how to attach a picture to an email on Android, follow our tutorials below. For all other information, or if you have further questions you’d like answered, please turn your attention to our FAQ section at the end of this article.
Table of Contents
How to attach a picture to an email on Android from the email app
- On your Android device, navigate to your preferred email app (e.g. Gmail, Outlook)
- Tap on the email app to open it, and select your preferred account before signing in with the relevant credentials
- Note: Select the email account you wish your recipient to receive your picture(s) from
- Once signed in, tap on the ‘Compose’ icon (usually located in the bottom-right of the screen, and usually looking like a pen hovering over a piece of paper)
- You will be directed to a blank email template, first enter the email address of your intended recipient in the ‘To:’ line
- Note: Include any secondary recipients’ email addresses in the ‘Cc:’ line
- Next, enter a subject heading in the ‘Subject:’ line of the email
- If you wish to enter any text into the body of the email, do so now by tapping in the body of the email and using the pop-up keyboard of your Android smartphone or tablet to type out your message
- To attach a picture (or several) to your email, simply look for the ‘Attach’ icon and tap on it. The ‘Attach’ icon is shaped like a paperclip.
- From the pop-up options, asking you where you’d like to search for the file to attach, select ‘Choose from photo library’ or the equivalent (such as selecting your ‘Gallery’ app icon), or ‘Attach file’
- Navigate through your phone’s storage files, photo library or ‘Gallery’ app to locate the image(s) you wish to attach to your email, and tap on the one you wish to attach
- Note: If you wish to attach several images, tap and hold the first one until it appears to be ‘selected’ and then tap each subsequent image
- Now choose whether to attach the pictures in their original size, or in a reduced size (see FAQs for further guidance)
- Finally, once ready to send your email with the pictures attached, tap ‘Send’ or the ‘Send’ icon (which usually looks like a paper airplane or arrow pointing toward the right)
How to attach a picture to an email on Android from your photo library/Gallery app
- On your Android device, open up your Gallery app or photo library
- Navigate to the folder with the picture(s) you want to send via email
- Look through the folder and find the picture(s) you want to attach to an email
- Tap and hold your chosen picture until it appears to be selected (usually a check mark will appear in one corner of it, or it will highlight in some other way)
- Note: To attach more than one image to an email, tap and hold the first picture, and once highlighted, tap each subsequent picture to select them as well
- Look for the ‘Share’ icon toward the top or bottom of your photo library or Gallery app, now that the pictures have been highlighted. Tap the ‘Share’ icon.
- From the pop-up menu, select the email app you would like to use to send your pictures (e.g. Gmail, Outlook, Email)
- You will be redirected to the email app you’ve chosen, and asked whether you wish to reduce the file size of the images, or keep them in their original size. Select whichever option you prefer (see FAQs for further guidance)
- Enter your intended recipient’s email address into the ‘To:’ line
- Note: Enter any additional recipients’ email addresses into the ‘Cc:’ line
- Enter any text into the body of the email by tapping the body and using the pop-up keyboard to write your message
- Finally, once ready to send your email with the pictures attached, tap ‘Send’ or the ‘Send’ icon (which usually looks like a paper airplane or arrow pointing toward the right)
And there you have it! Two fool-proof ways to attach a picture to an email on Android. If you have any further questions, or would like more information on this topic, please see our FAQs below.
FAQs
What are the best email apps on Android?
Sending pictures – be they photographs, GIFs, memes or images for work – to your friends, family and colleagues by email is a super fast and efficient way to transfer those types of file. With today’s technology, you can send any type of image from your smartphone or tablet to anyone with an email account.
Question is: is there one particular email app on Android which does the job better than the others? It’s a tricky question to answer. Essentially, the email app you should use mostly depends on the email address you wish to send a picture from. If you wish to send a picture to a friend, say, from your personal Hotmail account, then it’s best to use the Microsoft Outlook app.
On the other hand, if you have a professional Gmail account which you use to transfer photographs to colleagues for work, then you should use the Gmail app to attach a picture to your email.
At the end of the day, the ‘best’ app for attaching pictures to email on Android comes down to preference. Some people like the in-built default email app which comes with their Android device, whilst others (myself included) prefer to use the app associated specifically with their email account.
Should I send the picture in its original size or reduce it?
When you attach a picture to an email on Android, you’ll be presented with a small dialog box at the bottom of the screen, asking you whether you want to reduce the size of the image, or keep it in its original size. But what does this mean, and which option is best?
The reason your Android smartphone or Android tablet is asking you about resizing the attached picture is to help you optimize the overall file size of the image you’re sending in the email. Some images – especially photographs taken on a high-resolution camera – can be exceptionally large files.
Since emails have an upper limit on the size of the files you can send in one email (usually 20MB overall), reducing the size of the image may allow you to fit all of the pictures you need to attach into one email.
If you have only one picture to attach to an email on Android, however, then usually I would recommend retaining the image in its original size. This way, the full quality of the image is preserved and the recipient will be able to view and use it in the same resolution as you can.
Is email the best way to send a picture on Android?
There are obviously lots of different ways to send pictures on Android, especially with all of the different social media, communication and messaging apps we have at our disposal these days. But which is the best way to send a picture? Is email superior, say, to WhatsApp?
The answer to this question is really one of quality and ease. If you need to preserve the original quality and/or resolution of an image (i.e. if your recipient requires the image in its fullest and best quality), then email is almost always the way to go. Provided you keep the image in its original size when attaching the picture to your Android email (as discussed in the previous FAQ), then the recipient will receive it in its original (and thus best) quality.
On the other hand, if quality is not of major concern to either your or the recipient, then there are faster, arguably easier ways to send pictures on Android devices. Sending images over WhatsApp, for example, is a super efficient way of sending pictures. Most WhatsApp users’ settings allow for images sent to them to be automatically downloaded to a ‘WhatsApp’ folder in their Gallery/Photo Library. Similarly, WhatsApp integrates images into the chat feed, rather than attaching them separately.
You can also send pictures on Android via cloud-storage apps like Dropbox or WeTransfer, both of which preserve the full quality of the image, and can be handier than email.
At the end of the day, we recommend choosing email if you need quality, and a social messaging app if you need speed and accessibility, to send your pictures on an Android device.
