You may have seen people posting in the forums at Outlook not being able to see images on their Outlook accounts. You opened an email message and outlook is not displaying the included pictures. Why is this?
Outlook is a widely used email client that comes preinstalled on Windows operating systems. It has become extremely popular because of its ease of use and wide range of features.
Unfortunately, it also has some shortcomings. One such issue is that images don’t show up properly in emails received in Outlook.
Working in Microsoft Outlook gives its user a rich interface, Users prefer Outlook due to its enhanced functionalities.
Many times, user-facing issues are that images are not displaying in Outlook emails received in your inbox.
In this article, you will get and discuss the ways to resolve the Outlook emails issue outlook images are not displaying in the received email which was embedded.
Common Reasons for Blocked Images in Outlook
There are multiple reasons behind blocked images in Outlook & all are curable:
Internet connection Problem:
Getting your entire email message content even if you have low internet speed is possible, but in the case of low internet connection downloading images reflects a red X sign, which is an indicator of low internet speed.
Outlook Safe mode
Most of the time Outlook add-ins resist the smooth working of all Outlook features, downloading images in email messages is one of the impacted areas, you can fix it by disabling the add-ins and restarting Outlook.
Picture Placeholder setting
Sometimes enabled Picture Placeholder Settings results in trouble downloading images in an email message. To keep the landing gear proper, you must disable the feature.
- Click on New mail
- Click on File >> Options dialog.
- Click Mail >> Click Editor Options (under compose message)

- Click on Advanced from the left portion of the screen.
- From the display e-mail content
- Check whether the option Show Picture Placeholder is disabled or not, if not Uncheck “Show picture placeholder“.

- Close all opened dialog boxes.
- Reset Outlook and check from now you can see the images download easily.
Disable the setting for encrypted pages
- Click Window + R
- Type Control Panel >> Enter the internet setting in the search bar
- Internet Options window opens >> Click on Advance tab
- Scroll down till “Do not save encrypted files to disk“, Uncheck this setting, and Click Apply.

That’s it.
Virus scanner or firewall blocking
Antivirus is designed to block any suspected item received in your system, (internal or external) both ways. Picture downloading fails because a virus scanner resists or blocks Outlook from retrieving the pictures.
Simply disable the antivirus scanner so that the pictures won’t be blocked. It works trust me!
Reinstall Office
After all the above methods still, the problem is intact the best option is to reinstall Office, it clears all technical discrepancies. Reinstalling Office will not delete any settings or Outlook data, but it removes the bugs that cause trouble.
Pictures not showing in Outlook
Currently, the inflow of emails with pictures and infographics is common, but the problem appears when the image is not displayed: InfoBar at the top of the message is the clear indicator.

There are a few methods to get rid of this problem:
- Unblock picture for the single email message
- Add sender to safe sender list
- Add the domain to the safe sender list
- Change the automatic download setting
Unblock Image for the single email message
Although manual quick modification enables the image to download, you can unblock images simply by clicking Download Pictures on the InfoBar at the top of the message, it allows the image or picture to download easily unless you block it again.

This process for the single time saved the image for this specific email message and in the future, you won’t have to repeat the process, the image/picture displayed when you open the message next time.
Add Sender/Domain to safe sender list
You can perform steps to unblock pictures received in your inbox from a specific email address or a domain.

Click on the InfoBar at the top of the message, select “Add the Sender to Safe Senders List” or “Add the XXX@domain to Safe Senders List“, this process allows all images received from the sender or domain in the future.


Click Ok on either of the cases, from now onwards the image will download whenever you received an email from a specific sender or domain which consider a trusted source by Microsoft Outlook.
Change Automatic Download Setting
Under this setting, you manually allow the entire emails received in your inbox as trusted sources, Click on Change Automatic Download Setting, options from the drop-down list of InfoBar at the top of the message.
Or
- Click of File Tab from the top left corner of the screen

- Click Options >> Microsoft Outlook Trust Center section >> click on Trust Center Settings
- The Trust Center dialog box appears, From the Automatic Download tab in the left-hand section.
- Uncheck “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items.” & “Don’t download pictures in encrypted or signed HTML email messages”.
- Click OK to Save Changes

Outlook never blocks any email image after all this setting, all the pictures are now trusted.
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Final Words
In conclusion, Outlook is a free email service offered by Microsoft. It is commonly used for both personal and business purposes.
If you have an Outlook email account, then these settings may help fix the issue of not being able to view images.
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