Ed has a question: When I try to email photos from my desktop google photos to recipients who have gmail, they are not receiving them. Is there a setting I’m missing ???
My bet is that Ed is using the technique that sends photos directly to the recipient’s Google Photos and starts a shared conversation. They may get an email notification the first time this is done, but subsequent shares will skip email altogether and just go to Google Photos. The recipient needs to open their Google Photos and see if there is a red dot next to the sharing button. If so, click there and they should see a conversation from the sender with the photo(s) that were sent.
Several ways to send a photo directly with email
If you want the photos to go to the recipient’s email instead of their Google Photos, it’s actually quite easy. The complication comes with the fact that there are several different ways to do it depending on the device you’re using and which app you start with – Gmail or Google Photos. I’ll cover each of the 4 possibilities below, as well as a “Quick and Dirty” option.
- Start with Gmail app on mobile device
- Start with Gmail website on computer
- Start with Google Photos on mobile device
- Start with Google Photos website on computer
- The Quick and Dirty option
Starting from Gmail
- Starting from the Gmail app on an Android mobile device: Compose an email, then tap the paper clip icon at the top right and choose “Attach File.” Under “Browse files in other apps” scroll over until you see the Google Photos icon – tap that, then Photos to see your entire library of Google Photos.
On the iPhone, you will only have the option to attach photos stored on the device. If you need another photo from your Google Photos library, you would need to download it to your device first. - Starting from the Gmail website on a computer: Compose a new email, and then click the “Insert Image” button on the toolbar. This will take you to your Google Photos library where you can select photo(s) to be included in your email.
Starting from Google Photos
- Starting from the Google Photos app on an Android mobile device: Select photo(s), tap the share icon, find “Share to Apps” and then tap your email app on that line. That will open your email app (e.g. gmail) compose a new email and attach the photo(s)
- Starting from the Google Photos app on an iPhone: Select the photo(s), tap the share icon, then choose “Share to…” find your email app and tap it.
- Starting from Google Photos on the web: Select the photo(s), click the share button, select Create Link, Create Link (yes, again) then Copy. Now open your email program, and paste the link into the body of the email.
- The “Quick and Dirty” option: If you don’t care about sending the full resolution photo, an easy way to put a photo into an email is with copy and paste.
- Open the photo in Google Photos using the Chrome browser.
- Right-click on it and choose “Copy Image”
- Now go to your email, right-click in the body of the email and choose Paste
- repeat for more photos