The strange thing is that the image shows up perfectly in other email clients like Outlook and Apple Mail. But when I check the same email in Gmail, there’s just a blank space where the image should be. I’ve heard that Gmail might be blocking images for security purposes or routing them through some kind of proxy server. Has anyone else run into this issue before? I really need to get this working since most of my subscribers use Gmail. Any suggestions on what might be causing this problem or how to fix it would be great.
Gmail blocks images from domains or IPs with bad reputation scores. Had this exact problem last year - turned out the client’s hosting provider got flagged for spam. Quick test: upload your image to a completely different domain and see if it loads. Also check if your image server handles HEAD requests properly since Gmail’s proxy does that before grabbing the actual image. One thing that worked for me was making sure the HTML dimensions matched the actual file size - Gmail gets weird about scaled images. If you’re still stuck, try attaching the image first, then reference it in follow-up emails to the same person.
check ur image file size - gmail’s proxy can time out on larger imgs. happened 2 me before with a 2mb logo that just needed some compression. also try adding explicit content-type meta tags in ur email header. it helps, trust me!
Gmail’s image blocking is annoying but fixable with proper automation.
Your real problem isn’t hosting or HTML - you’re manually managing campaigns when you should automate everything. Gmail’s proxy hates inconsistent sending patterns and image sources.
I had this same issue with our product newsletters. Instead of fighting Gmail, I built an automated workflow that handles it all properly. It processes images, ensures proper headers, validates URLs, and sends through verified domains.
The workflow monitors delivery rates and switches image hosting when Gmail blocks stuff. It even A/B tests different formats and finds what works best for each person’s email client.
Manual campaigns mean you’ll keep hitting these walls. Automation fixes the root problem by handling all the technical stuff Gmail cares about - proper authentication, consistent sending reputation, and optimized image delivery.
You can also set up automatic fallbacks when images don’t load and track which subscribers actually see your content.
Skip the endless troubleshooting and build a proper automated system: https://latenode.com
u could try adding border=“0” to ur img tag. gmail’s proxy can mess things up if the url is hard to reach. also, check for redirects in the image link - they can be a real pain to deal with!
I’ve hit this problem tons of times. Gmail’s image proxy is super picky about hosting setups. Usually it’s missing HTTPS certificates or mixed content issues on your image host. Upload your image to a solid CDN like Cloudinary, or just throw it on Google Drive with public sharing - sounds weird but Gmail trusts its own stuff more. Make sure your server sends proper MIME type headers too. Check if your image URL redirects anywhere because Gmail’s proxy sucks at following redirects. Still broken? Try a different image format or re-save the file to strip any weird metadata.