Inline vs. hosted images

Overview

We recommend in-line images for all Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) customers.

Opensense now lets you decide whether the images in your email signature are hosted images (served by URL), or in-line images (embedded in the body of the email).

Pros and cons

	Hosted images	In-line images
Pros	Images display automatically on most web clients and mobile devices Images can be updated after delivery Images won't show up as attachments	Images display automatically on every device
Cons	Images may be blocked on some desktop clients (specifically Outlook)	Images may end up as attachments after replies Campaigns can't be updated after they're delivered Takes up space on the mail server

Why the choice matters

By default, some email clients automatically block hosted images from being downloaded. In-line images prevent this issue.

Campaign analytics

Opensense applies a proprietary approach that keeps campaign analytics unaffected, whichever method you use. So you get the benefit of in-line images and banner view analytics.

The downsides of in-line images

Because the images are embedded in the email, they may take up space on your recipient’s email server.
More of an issue: email clients often don’t fully understand how to treat in-line images. After a few email exchanges, in-line images may end up as attachments.
There isn’t a lot that can be done about this. It’s a known issue with this method of embedding images, and it would persist with or without Opensense.

What’s next

For further help, contact Opensense Support at help@opensense.com.