The easiest way to E-mail pictures in Windows

Digital pictures today are really high quality! Because of this, the file sizes are huge which makes sharing those pictures more difficult than ever. I get asked on a daily basis what the best way to resize and E-mail those pictures is. I'm going to show you how to resize your pictures automatically with tools included in Windows XP and then attach those pictures to an E-mail. There are lots of 3rd Party programs available to resize pictures however, most of them involve steps which are more complex then they need to be. This same process can be applied to modern versions of Windows such as Windows Vista and Windows 7, the steps will vary slightly but the fundamentals are the same.

There are 5 steps required in this tutorial, continue reading for a more detailed explanation of the steps.

Step-by-Step:

Step 1: Open the location the pictures are stored, i.e.: "My Documents" then "My Pictures".

Step 2: Select the Pictures you would like to send using a Selection box, CTRL-Click or "Edit" Menu > "Select All"

Step 3: Right-click a selected file, mouse-over "Send To" > click on "Mail Recipient"

Step 4: Choose "Make all my pictures smaller", click "Show more options…" then choose the quality you would like to use. Click "OK"

Step 5: Once your E-mail program opens with a new E-mail started, fill in the "To:" field and complete your E-mail. Click "Send" to Send the E-mail on its way.

The first step involved in resizing our pictures is to find the pictures, for some this can be the hardest step. Most photo importing software included with a new digital camera sets up an album which is stored in the My Pictures folder. To access this folder, open "My Documents." Inside you should find "My Pictures" with all of your photos.

Once you have located your pictures, we will move on to the next step.

The second step to E-mailing these pictures is to select the pictures we want to send. I find it easiest to work in Thumbnail view, you can change your view by going to the "View" menu at the top of the window and selecting "Thumbnail". This will now change all of your folders and pictures from folder and file icons or details to small preview thumbnails of your images.

Picture selection using a drag box.

You can select a group of pictures by drawing a box around them (hold down the left mouse button on white space in the window and drag a box around a group of pictures) or by holding the CTRL key on the keyboard and clicking on each picture to select. You can also deselect pictures individually by holding CTRL and clicking on the photos you don't want selected. If you would like to select all of the images in the folder, go to the "Edit" menu at the top of the window and choose "Select All."

Right-click context menu, Send To > Mail Recipient.

Now that we have our pictures selected we can E-mail them. If you right click on a selected picture the context menu will open. Halfway down there is an mostly overlooked option which you may have seen before, "Send To" If we hover the cursor over "Send To," the list will expand revealing a list of various ways which we can Send our pictures. Click on "Mail Recipient."

Send Pictures via E-Mail wizard.

A "Send Pictures via E-Mail" window will popup with some options for us to specify, click on "Make all my pictures smaller" then click on "Show more options…" in the lower left. This will give us additional options to choose the picture size. The larger the picture, the large the file size, and the fewer pictures we can send.

Make my pictures this size.

Large: 1-30 Pictures
Medium: 1-45 Pictures
Small: 1-64 Pictures

This is a general guideline, every picture is different. Many E-mail providers limit an E-mail to 10Mb so the idea is to stay under that limit. Experiment with the settings and worse case you can split the pictures into 2 or more messages.

Also note: These pictures will be suitable for on-screen viewing and are not intended for reproduction, E-mail is not the best way to send HQ photos.

Send Mail window resizes the pictures to be E-mailed.

Once you have chosen the size you would like, click "OK" to continue. The "Send Mail" window will appear which will prepare each picture for mailing. When completed, the wizard will automatically open your default mail program, create a new message and add all of your pictures as attachments.