Send photos from AOL email account

At the time of writing, AOL offers 25MB for email attachments. This means you can send tons of photos from your AOL email account - yes, even those large pictures from your digital camera, though I suggest reading how to decrease picture size to stuff in more in a single message.

Anyway, there are two ways to send photos from an AOL email account. The first involves simply attaching the picture file to the message while the other is more intuitive and puts the image 'inside the email' (embedding). We'll touch base with this again at the end of the article once you have learnt how to attach and send photos from the AOL account. To give you a heads up, the difference is subtle.

How to attach and send photo from AOL email

We'll first look at the process of sending a photo that resides on your computer; yes, there is also a way to directly insert an online photo in an AOL email. Please note that depending on the operating system and the configuration of your computer, the steps below might change for you.

• Sign in at your account through the AOL login page and click the "Email" button to get a blank form [Slide 1]. You can start attaching photos to the email immediately... no need to even put the recipient's address or type in the message.
• As shown in slide 2, there are two buttons you can use to put a photo in the message. The one with the paper clip lets you attach any file including images, while the other gives you the ability to include the photo directly inside the message. Let us check these out - instructions have been worked out in Windows 7 and Google Chrome web browser.
• If the toolbar at the top of the email box is missing, you have the rich-text composition turned off. Please enable it by clicking on the link [Slide 3].
• Attaching photo file to email message in AOL: Click the button with the paper clip [Slide 4]. This opens a small browser window. Move to the folder that has the image you want to attach. Double-click on the image or select and hit the "Open" button [Slide 5]. The file will now be attached to the email [Slide 6].
• Embedding a photo in the email: Using the "Insert pictures into your email" functionality (the button with the camera icon) embeds an image inside the message composition box. To check out how this works, click the button [Slide 7] and choose a photo from the pop-up window [Slide 8]. Depending on the internet connection speed and the size of the file, you might need to wait till the image is transferred to the AOL server [Slide 9]. Once uploaded, the photo is placed directly inside the email message box [Slide 10].
• The email now has a couple of photos - one image file is attached while the other is 'embedded' in the message [Slide 11]
• To delete the attached file, move the mouse cursor over it and then click on the small cross that appears [Slide 12].
• Similarly, to get rid of the embedded image, take the cursor over it till you get a small cross at the top-right. Click on it [Slide 13].
• You can also change the size and justification of the embedded image and even specify how you want the text to wrap around it. Click on the small gear icon (top-left) and choose the appropriate option [Slide 14].
• Finally, to send the photos from your AOL email account, complete the email message and hit the "Send" button at the top [Slide 15].

So now that you know how to attach as well as embed photos in the AOL email message, which one should you use? There is no direct answer - it depends on your requirements. Also, nowadays, with web-based email programs (webmail) showing a thumbnail of image attachments, the difference between these two methods is sort of hazy. Having said that, I strongly suggest that photos with large dimensions should be sent as attachments and not embedded in the message body. You might also be interested in how to reduce image size for email and the web.