I’m having trouble with Gmail displaying base64 encoded images in my HTML emails. I converted all my images to base64 format to prevent loading issues. This includes several regular images plus some transparent spacer gifs. The images show up fine in other email clients but Gmail just won’t display them properly. I’ve tried different approaches but nothing seems to work. Has anyone else run into this problem? Would using embedded images with content IDs be a better solution?
Gmail blocks base64 encoded images way more aggressively than other email clients. I’ve dealt with this before - they strip them as a security measure, especially with larger files or multiple images in one email. Hit this same issue last year with newsletter templates. What actually worked was switching to hosted images with proper cid references, or just hosting images on a server and linking directly. Base64 seems convenient but Gmail’s filtering makes it unreliable. You’ll get much better results with regular image hosting, even if you have to deal with occasional loading issues.
gmail’s the worst for this. i’ve seen base64 work perfectly in outlook and thunderbird, then gmail just shows broken placeholders. switch to cid attachments - they work way better across email clients and gmail actually handles them properly.
Yeah, Gmail’s security filters consistently block base64 images. Hit this exact problem building automated email campaigns for product launches.
Manually switching between base64 and hosted images for different clients is a maintenance nightmare. You end up juggling multiple templates with tons of conditional logic.
I automated the whole process instead. Built a workflow that detects the recipient’s email client and serves the right image format. Gmail users get hosted images with CDN links, everyone else gets base64.
It also handles image optimization, generates alt text, and falls back to text when images fail. No more template juggling or broken-looking emails.
Saves hours of debugging across different clients. Check it out: https://latenode.com