Troubleshooting Images in Emails

If you’ve switched to our new email builder, some steps in this article may not apply. To learn how to use the new builder, check out Design an Email with the New Builder.

There are a few things that can cause issues when you work with images in emails. If your images look broken or are slow to load in subscribers' inboxes, there are some troubleshooting steps for preventing image errors.

In this article, you'll learn about some common image upload and display issues, and some tips to help you troubleshoot.

Upload issues

If you're having trouble uploading an image to Mailchimp's Content Studio, review these common issues.

• The image is too large.
  If your image takes a long time to upload or won't upload, the file size could be too large. We recommend using a photo-editing program to resize your image to 1MB or smaller.
• A valid image won't upload, or causes an error message.
  If an image file won't upload at all, or generates an error about file type, double-check that your web browser meets our minimum system requirements. To see if your browser may be the issue, try the upload in another browser like Firefox or Chrome. If the upload works in the alternate browser, disable add-ons, extensions, and plugins in the original browser, and clear cache and cookies to resolve the issue.
• The image file name has spaces or special characters.
  If you use a URL to upload an image from your own server, make sure the file name has no spaces or special characters. Some email clients won't display images that contain spaces or special characters in the file name. Remove the space or replace them with dashes (-) or underscores (_).
• The file type is missing.
  If you use a URL to upload an image from your own server, make sure to include the image's file extension (.jpg, .gif, .png).
• Images are blocked.
  Security programs will sometimes block the image upload pop-up modal. If you're unable to see the Content Studio, or can't get an upload to work, and the items listed above aren't an issue, this is likely the problem. To fix this, contact a system admin and set mailchimp.com as a trusted domain with your internet security program or firewall.

Display issues

If your image will upload but won't display correctly in inboxes, there are a few ways to make sure your subscribers see images correctly.

• The email client is blocking images.
  Some email clients block images by default and require your subscriber to choose to display images. Unfortunately, Mailchimp can't bypass or influence this security feature. Ask your subscribers to add your email address to their address book or safe sender list to increase the chances that their email client will display your images. In addition, make sure your domain is properly authenticated. To learn more, check out About Email Domain Authentication.
• Images look blurry or fuzzy on a retina display.
  Retina displays use a higher ratio of pixels per inch, which can cause smaller images to appear fuzzy. To make sure your images appear clearly on all screens, use Mailchimp's recommended image sizes.
• Image colors don't look right.
  Images need to be formatted as RGB, a color scheme optimized for web display. Images formatted in CMYK, a color scheme optimized for print, won't always display well on screens. To fix this, save your image in RGB format.
• Images in text blocks appear stretched on mobile devices.
  Large images that are copied into a text content block may stretch your layout when viewed on mobile devices. Instead, resize your image, or use one of our mobile-responsive Image, Image Group, Image Card, or Image + Caption content blocks.
• Images are sideways, or in the wrong orientation.
  Images taken with smartphones sometimes contain exif data. Exif data specifies the position of the camera when the photo was taken and causes the image to display in its original orientation. Images with exif data display properly in the Email Builder but may display incorrectly when emails are sent, depending on the browser or email client. To fix image orientation issues, learn how to remove exif data.
• Images won't show up correctly in Outlook.
  Outlook sometimes experiences cache issues. If Outlook won't download your image, or if it looks broken, ask your subscriber to reboot their computer to clear Outlook's cache.
• Background images don't show up.
  We use CSS to add background images to emails. CSS isn't supported by all email clients. Take a look at our Add a Background Image to a Landing Page or Email article to find out which email clients support background images.

Broken images

If images in your email don't display at all, here are a few possible causes.

• The email client is blocking images.
  Some email clients block images by default and require your subscriber to choose to display images. Unfortunately, Mailchimp can't bypass or influence this security feature. Ask your subscribers to add your email address to their address book or safe sender list to increase the chances that their email client will display your images. In addition, make sure your domain is properly authenticated. To learn more, check out About Email Domain Authentication.
• Image file names don't use absolute paths.
  Any image you use in an email is hosted on a server and then displayed on the subscriber's computer when they open the email. If you code your own templates, always use absolute paths for images in your HTML so the email client can find and display your images.
• Images are hosted on a hosting or file sharing site.
  Don't host images used in emails on a free file hosting site or free website account like Dropbox or Tumblr. These systems often block outside links to images they host to keep their bandwidth costs down. Instead, host the images on your own server when providing your own HTML for emails, or use our Content Studio.
• Images are hosted on a private, secure server.
  Make sure the images in your email are not being hosted on a secure server that requires a login and password.

Images load too slowly in inboxes

If your email images take a long time to load in your subscribers' inboxes or in test emails, there are a couple of things that could be going on.

• The image is too large, or resolution is too high.
  To reduce the file size and improve display, use an image optimizer tool.
• There are too many large images.
  If possible, use fewer large images in your email.
• Your email includes an extra large image or image map.
  It may sound counterintuitive, but if you're using a very large image or image map, break it into smaller images. This can help your email load faster.