When recipients open your email, they may notice that images don’t always load automatically. This is a common behaviour in many email clients and is not a fault with the email itself. Understanding why this happens and how to manage it will help you design emails that look good, even when images are blocked.
Most email clients block images by default for security and privacy reasons. Here are the most common reasons:
- Blocked Remote Images
Most email clients block "remote" or externally hosted images by default. Since our platform (like many others) hosts images on external servers to improve load speed and deliverability, some clients require users to allow these images manually.
- Background images aren't supported
Several email clients, especially Microsoft Outlook on Windows, do not support background images. When this happens, only the background colour (if set) will appear.
- Firewall Restrictions
Strict firewalls, especially in corporate or government environments, may block image hosting domains entirely. This is outside the sender’s control and must be addressed by the recipient’s IT team. Here is a link for more info on this: https://supportpal.touchbasepro.com/en/knowledgebase/article/whitelist-touchbasepro-sending-addresses
- User Preferences
Some users manually adjust their settings to block images by default, especially if they’re on a limited data plan or want faster loading times.
- Spam Filters
Emails with a high image-to-text ratio or with suspicious image links might trigger spam filters, which can result in image blocking.
While image blocking is a common and expected behaviour in email delivery, it doesn’t have to hinder your campaigns. By following best practices and designing with fallback content in mind, you can ensure your message still gets across, images or not.
How to work around images not automatically downloading:
- Implement inline images. This additional paid-for feature will cause the recipient to see images automatically without needing to download.
- Ensure all your images have alt-text. Alt-text not only helps in preventing your emails from landing in spam but can actually encourage readers to download images, as they will see the alt-text in place of the image.
- Avoid image-only campaigns. Try and include actual text elements in your campaigns so that your emails will still make sense if images aren't automatically downloaded.
If you need any assistance regarding images not downloading in your email campaigns, please contact our support team at [email protected]