Hey everyone, I’m having trouble with images in my Gmail emails. They’re not showing up properly because of Gmail’s new image proxy feature. Here’s what’s happening:
My original image URL is something like:
http://mywebsite.com/pictures/banner.png
But in Gmail, it’s changed to something like this:
https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/SomeRandomString=#http://mywebsite.com/pictures/banner.png
This is messing up how the images display in my emails. Has anyone else run into this problem? Do you know any ways to fix it or work around it? I’d really appreciate any help or advice you can offer. Thanks!
I’ve dealt with this issue before, and it can be frustrating. Gmail’s image proxy is designed to enhance security, but it can sometimes cause display problems. One workaround I’ve found effective is to use absolute URLs for your images instead of relative ones. This means including the full ‘https://’ prefix in your image sources.
Another trick that’s worked for me is to host images on a content delivery network (CDN) like Amazon S3 or Cloudinary. These services are often whitelisted by Gmail and bypass the proxy.
If those don’t work, you might consider using inline base64 encoded images for crucial elements like logos. It’s not ideal for large images due to file size, but it can ensure key visuals always display correctly.
Lastly, always test your emails across different email clients and devices. What works in one might not work in another, so it’s crucial to cover your bases.
I’ve encountered this issue as well. One effective solution I’ve implemented is using a service like Imgix or Cloudinary to handle image processing and delivery. These services can dynamically adjust image URLs to work with Gmail’s proxy.
Another approach is to implement lazy loading for your images. This technique delays loading images until they’re needed, which can sometimes bypass Gmail’s proxy issues.
If you’re technically inclined, you could also set up a custom domain for serving images and configure it to handle Gmail’s proxy requests properly. This requires some server-side tweaks but can be a robust long-term solution.
Remember to thoroughly test your emails across various email clients and devices to ensure consistent display across platforms.
yeah, ive seen this issue too. Gmail’s proxy can be a pain. have u tried using a different image hosting service? some work better w/ Gmail. also, make sure ur image URLs are secure (https). if nothing else works, u could try embedding small images directly in the email HTML. good luck!