One of the fundamental uses of email is to share photos and other files with friends, family, or colleagues. But people who are new to email might not yet know how to attach and send files in email. Here are some beginner instructions you can share.
This edition of our easy-to-email tech support guides is all about email attachments. We'll cover how to attach a file in both desktop and web email applications.
In all of these options—Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, and Mail—you'll want to keep an eye out for a a paperclip icon, the universal image for attachments in email programs.
The process is pretty much the same for all email programs:
Here are some more specifics for the most popular email applications.
The video above shows you how to compose a new email in Gmail (click on the "Compose email" button) and attach a file when you click on the "Attach a file" link in Gmail. Find and click on the folder or files you wish to attach, then hit "Open" and you should see the attachment added to your message. In the most recent versions of browsers like Chrome and Firefox, you can also simply drag and drop files into Gmail's Compose window upload an attachment.
Yahoo! has a similar method of attaching an email. Click on the "New" button in Yahoo! Mail to compose a new message. Then click on the "Attach Files" button that's right under the subject line. Instead of immediately bringing you to your documents, Yahoo! will present you with several "Choose File" buttons. For each file you want to attach to your email, click on one of these buttons and browse for the file you wish to send.
Click on the "New" link to compose a new email. Beneath the Subject line, you'll have an option to insert attachments (a paperclip icon, again)> There are also handy shortcuts for inserting Office documents, photos from the web or your own album, and stuff you can find from bing. The most straightforward method is to click the "Attachments" link. From the Windows Explorer window that opens, select the file(s) you wish to attach and click "Open".
We're using Outlook 2010 as an example here, but the general process should also work for earlier Outlook versions such as Outlook 2007.
On Apple's built-in Mail app, create a new email message by clicking the "New Message" icon. In the new message window, click the paperclip icon to add an attachment. From the drop-down folder browsing window, navigate to and select the file(s) you wish to attach and then click the "Choose File" button. You should then see your file(s) added to the body of your email message.
In addition to using the built-in attachment options in your desktop email program, you can also right-click on a file in your computer's file manager (Windows Explorer or Mac's Finder, for example) and select the option to Send the file to an email recipient. This is a quick shortcut to opening up a new email message window for your default desktop email program and inserting the file as an attachment.
For integrating Gmail or Yahoo Mail into your desktop environment so the Send To menu attaches files to these webmail programs, you can use previously mentioned software Affixa.
Emailable Tech Support is a tri-weekly series of easy-to-share guides for the less tech savvy people in your life. Got a beginner tech support question you constantly answer? Let us know at [email protected]. Remember, when you're just starting out computing, there's very little that's too basic to learn.