Email Signature Image Not Showing? How to Fix Your Logo, Photo and Icons in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail

If your email signature image isn't showing, the cause is almost always one of four things: the recipient's email app is blocking images from senders it doesn't know, the image lives somewhere the recipient can't reach (a file on your computer, a private Google Drive or OneDrive file, a page on your website that has changed), the image was embedded in the email instead of linked so it turns into an attachment, or the email went out as plain text. Which one it is depends on who can't see the image and what they see instead.

This guide starts with a symptom table, then walks through each cause with the fix for Gmail, Outlook (new, classic, web, Mac and mobile) and Apple Mail on Mac and iPhone. Every setting was checked against Google, Microsoft and Apple support pages in October 2026.

Find your symptom first

Before changing anything, send a test email to an address on a different service (a Gmail address if you use Outlook, an Outlook.com address if you use Gmail) and open it on a computer and a phone. What you see in your own Sent folder is often a local copy, so it can look perfect while every recipient sees a broken box.

Images blocked by the recipient's email app

This is the most common reason, and it isn't a fault in your signature. Many email apps don't load pictures from the internet until the reader allows it, because loading an image tells the sender the email was opened. Your recipient sees an empty frame, the alt text or a gray box with a message at the top.

Here is what each app does by default and how a reader can change it:

• Classic Outlook for Windows blocks automatic picture downloads from the internet by default, according to Microsoft. The reader clicks the bar at the top of the message and chooses Download Pictures, or right-clicks a blocked image and chooses Add Sender to Safe Senders List. To turn blocking off for all mail: File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings, then clear Don't download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items (in Outlook for Microsoft 365 this sits on the Automatic Download tab).
• Outlook for Mac doesn't download pictures from the internet automatically either. The reader sets it in Outlook > Settings > Reading, under Download external images: Always, My contacts, organisation(s) and safe senders, or Ask before downloading.
• Outlook for iOS and Android has a Block External Images setting. When it is on, hosted signature images don't load.
• New Outlook and Outlook on the web follow your company's settings, and Microsoft has been adding new options for blocking external images there during 2026 (Microsoft 365 roadmap item 565862). If only some colleagues see blank boxes, ask IT.
• Gmail has an Images setting under Settings > See all settings > General: Always display external images or Ask before displaying external images. With the second, the reader clicks Display images below. Google also says that if it considers a sender or message suspicious, it won't show images automatically, even with "Always display" selected.
• Apple Mail on iPhone and Mac turns on Protect Mail Activity by default, which loads images privately in the background, so they normally appear. If a reader has turned that off and switched on Block All Remote Content (Mac: Mail > Settings > Privacy; iPhone: Settings > Apps > Mail > Privacy Protection), images wait until they choose to load them.

You can't change these settings for your recipients. What you can do is make sure the signature still works with images off:

1. Keep your name, phone, email and website as real text. Never put contact details inside an image. A signature that is one big picture becomes one big empty box.
2. Give every image alt text, such as your company name on the logo and "LinkedIn" on the LinkedIn icon. Many apps show it in place of a blocked picture.
3. Ask regular clients to add you to their safe senders or contacts. Once they do, Outlook loads your images every time.

The image link is broken or private

If nobody can see the image, including you on another device, the address the signature points to doesn't deliver an image anymore. Typical causes:

• The image is a file on your computer. If you built the signature in Word or an HTML file and the image path starts with file:///C:/... or points to your Desktop, it works only on your machine. Everyone else gets a broken image.
• Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox sharing. For Gmail, Google's own rule is that a Drive image must be shared as Anyone with the link with Viewer access, or recipients see a broken image. If the Drive file is deleted, the image disappears from your signature. On work and school accounts, the administrator may block public sharing, which is why some accounts can only add images by URL.
• A sharing link is not an image link. A link you copy from a "Share" button usually opens a web page that shows the picture, not the picture itself. Email apps need a direct image address that ends in the file, typically .png or .jpg. A Microsoft Q&A thread from a user whose Drive-hosted logo showed as a blank square in Outlook is a typical example. Test it: paste the address into a private browser window. If you see only the image, on a plain background, it's a direct link.
• Your website changed. A logo linked straight from your company website breaks the day the site is redesigned, moved to another host, or put behind a security service that blocks automated requests. It breaks in old emails too, because they still point to the old address.
• The address is too long or malformed. Copying signatures between apps sometimes mangles image URLs. Delete the image and insert it again.

The fix: host every image at a stable, public address that you control and won't move, then insert it again. Google's troubleshooting page recommends exactly that for broken images or question marks in Gmail: delete the image and add it again, using the other option if one fails. In Gmail's Add an image dialog the options are Web Address (URL) and Google Drive.

Signature generators solve this by hosting the images themselves. Signguin, for example, stores your logo, photo and generated icons on its own servers at a public address, so they keep working when your website changes.

Images showing as attachments (image001.png)

When your logo arrives as a file called image001.png, or every email you send gets a paperclip icon, the image was embedded: the picture file travels inside each email. Outlook shows embedded images in place, but many other apps list them as attachments as well, and some show them only as attachments.

There are two ways an image can travel with an email:

Microsoft MVP Robert Sparnaaij calls linking to a hosted image "the only reliable way" to prevent the attachment problem whatever app the recipient uses. In classic Outlook, if you add the picture yourself in the signature editor, enter the web address of the image and choose Link to File from the arrow next to Insert, instead of inserting a file from your computer.

Other causes Sparnaaij lists:

• The recipient reads mail as plain text. Embedded images then become attachments and vanish from the message.
• A virus scanner rewrites messages on the sender's or the recipient's side.
• Classic Outlook embeds linked images when it sends. Depending on a registry setting, classic Outlook for Windows can download linked pictures and pack them into the email anyway. Our Outlook signature not showing guide has the registry details.

Apple's Mail guide also warns that, depending on how a recipient's mail server handles signatures, your signature may appear as an attachment or an image. On a Mac, images you drag into the signature column are embedded, so hosted images avoid most of these surprises.

Plain text kills images

A plain text email can't hold pictures, colors or links. If your signature appears as bare text, or images turn into attachments, check the format of the email:

• Gmail: in the compose window, open the three-dot menu (More options) and make sure Plain text mode is not ticked.
• New Outlook and Outlook on the web: Settings > Mail > Compose and reply, Message format: HTML.
• Classic Outlook: File > Options > Mail, Compose messages in this format: HTML. When you reply to a plain text email, classic Outlook keeps the reply in plain text. Switch that one message with Format Text > HTML.

Gmail signature image not showing

On top of the causes above, Gmail has four quirks of its own:

If the whole signature is missing in Gmail, not only the image, go to Gmail signature not showing.

1. Images pasted as code don't work. Some editors put the image inside the HTML as a long block of text (a "base64" image) instead of a link. caniemail.com's testing shows Gmail doesn't display these, and Google says images count toward the 10,000-character signature limit, so such a signature may not even save. Use a hosted image.
2. The image is too large. Google recommends a signature image about 70 to 100 pixels high and 300 to 400 pixels wide, with a maximum of 100 by 1,000 pixels. An oversized image can display wrongly. After inserting, click the image and choose Small, Medium, Large or Original size.
3. Drive sharing must be set to Anyone with the link, Viewer (see above).
4. Your browser. For upload problems, Google suggests clearing the browser cache, allowing cookies for mail.google.com, or trying an incognito window or another browser.

If the signature shows on your computer but not on emails you send from your phone, see the phone section below. The full Gmail setup, including where the signature lives (Settings > See all settings > General > Signature, then Save Changes), is in our guide to changing your Gmail signature.

Outlook signature image not showing

Most Outlook image problems are covered by the sections above: blocked downloads, embedded images and plain text. Outlook for Windows adds three more.

Unsupported formats. According to caniemail.com's data, Outlook 2007 to 2016 for Windows doesn't show SVG images, and no tested version of Outlook for Windows (2007 to 2019) shows WebP. Outlook 2016 for Mac shows neither. Many websites now serve their logo as SVG or WebP, so a logo copied from a site can work in Gmail and be blank in Outlook. Use PNG for logos and icons and JPG for photos.

The May 2026 classic Outlook bug. After the May 12, 2026 updates, Microsoft confirmed that images in emails and signatures didn't display in all supported versions of classic Outlook, sometimes with a red X and the error "The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed, or deleted." Microsoft marked it fixed in builds from June 2026. Update Office (File > Office Account > Update Options > Update Now). Replies and forwards sent while the bug was active may have lost the image permanently.

Images in replies. Several Microsoft Q&A users report that signature images show in the first message of a thread and break further down. Embedded images are a common cause, because each reply and forward has to carry the attached copy along again. A hosted image is only a link, so it has less to lose.

For everything else that goes wrong with Outlook signatures (no signature at all, missing on replies, lost after switching to new Outlook), see our Outlook signature not showing guide. Setup steps for every version are in how to add a signature in Outlook.

Apple Mail and iPhone

On a Mac, you add an image by dragging it into the signature column in Mail > Settings > Signatures. That embeds the file in each email, which brings back the attachment problem for some recipients. If the box Always match my default message font is ticked, Mail also applies your default message font to the signature, which can restyle a designed signature. For a designed signature, paste one with hosted images instead of dragging files in.

On an iPhone, the signature field in Settings > Apps > Mail > Signature is officially text only, so you can't insert an image there. The common workaround is to copy a finished signature with hosted images and paste it into the field. It often works, but Apple doesn't support it, so always send a test. Our iPhone email signature guide walks through it step by step.

If images don't show in emails you receive on an iPhone or Mac, check the Privacy Protection settings described in the first section.

Images missing when you send from a phone

Phone apps keep their own signatures, and most of them are plain text:

• Gmail app: a Mobile signature is used only for emails sent from the app, and it is text only. Google says that if you don't set one, new messages use the signature from your computer, logo included. So leave the mobile signature off or empty if you want your full signature on your phone.
• Outlook app for iOS and Android: has its own signature under Settings > Mail > Signature and doesn't use the one from your computer. Microsoft doesn't document image support there, and images often get lost when pasted. Our Outlook mobile signature guide covers the workarounds.
• Apple Mail on iPhone: see above.

Images too big, too small or blurry

Huge images almost always mean the image has no fixed width and height in the HTML. Outlook for Windows ignores sizes set only with CSS, so a logo saved at 600 pixels wide displays at 600 pixels. The fix is a signature where every image has width and height attributes, for example width="150" height="50". Apple Mail on Mac can also ignore the width of embedded images, so a sharp 2x logo shows at double size there. Hosted images avoid it.

Blurry images have the opposite problem: a small file stretched across a high-density screen. Save each image at twice the size it displays (a 150 pixel wide logo as a 300 pixel file) and let the width attribute shrink it. Classic Outlook for Windows also compresses images you insert through its signature editor; in Outlook for Microsoft 365 you can switch that off in File > Options > Mail > Editor Options > Advanced > Do not compress images in file.

Squashed or stretched images have a width and height that don't match the file's proportions. Set both to the real ratio.

The exact numbers for logos, photos, banners and icons are in our email signature size guide.

Logo disappears in dark mode

If your logo is there in light mode and gone in dark mode, the image is fine: it's a dark logo on a transparent background, sitting on a dark gray screen. Email apps change text and background colors in dark mode but leave images alone. Put the logo on a small white or light tile inside the image file, and it stays visible everywhere. Our email signature dark mode guide explains what each app does. Social icons follow the same rule: dark glyphs on transparent backgrounds vanish, filled icons in a mid-tone color don't. More in our guide to social media icons for email signatures.

Penguins handle black and white rather well. Logos need a little help.

A signature that avoids most of these problems

If you've been fighting the same broken logo for a week, it is often quicker to start from a signature built for email than to repair one pasted together from Word, a website and a screenshot. A reliable signature has:

• every image hosted at a stable public address, never embedded or stored on your PC;
• PNG for logos and icons, JPG for photos, no SVG or WebP;
• fixed width and height attributes on every image, files saved at 2x;
• alt text on every image;
• all contact details as real text;
• a logo that reads on dark backgrounds.

Signguin is a free email signature generator that builds signatures this way. You type your work email, and it loads your company logo, brand colors and contact details from your website. The logo is trimmed and stored at 2x on Signguin's servers, social icons are PNG files in your brand color, every image gets fixed dimensions and alt text (your company name on the logo, the network name on each icon), and the White box behind logo option bakes a white tile into the logo for dark mode. You preview it on phone and desktop, in light and dark mode, then copy it and paste it into Gmail, Outlook or Apple Mail with the step-by-step instructions.

What no generator can fix: a recipient who blocks images, a company that strips external content, plain text replies, or a phone app's own text-only signature. Those are settings, and the sections above show where they are.

FAQ

Why is my email signature image not showing for recipients?

Usually their email app blocks images from senders it doesn't know until they click to download them. Classic Outlook and Outlook for Mac do this by default. Other causes: the image is stored on your computer or in a privately shared Drive or OneDrive file, the email went out as plain text, or the image is SVG or WebP, which older Outlook versions don't display.

Why does my email signature logo show as an attachment?

The logo is embedded in the email instead of linked from a web address. Many email apps list embedded pictures as attachments named image001.png. Host the logo online and link to it. In classic Outlook, insert it by web address with Link to File. Plain text emails and virus scanners that rewrite messages can also turn images into attachments.

Why is my Gmail signature image not showing?

Check that a Drive image is shared as "Anyone with the link" with Viewer access, that the file still exists, and that Plain text mode is off. Images pasted as base64 code don't display in Gmail. If you still see a broken icon, delete the image and add it again through Web Address (URL), with a direct link to a PNG or JPG file.

Why is my Outlook signature image showing a red X?

The image couldn't be loaded. Either the link points to a file that moved or isn't public, or you were hit by a classic Outlook bug from May 2026 that showed "The linked image cannot be displayed." Microsoft fixed it in June 2026 builds, so update Office first, then reinsert the image from a public web address.

How do I make my signature images show without the recipient clicking "Download pictures"?

You can't force it: image blocking is the recipient's setting. Being in their contacts or Safe Senders list helps in Outlook. Make sure the signature works with images off: contact details as real text, alt text on every image, and no important information that exists only inside a picture or banner.

What image format is best for an email signature?

PNG for logos and icons, JPG for photos. Outlook 2007 to 2016 for Windows doesn't show SVG, no tested Outlook for Windows version shows WebP, and Gmail doesn't display images pasted as base64 code. Save each image at twice its display size and set fixed width and height so it stays sharp and correctly sized.