How to embed an image in the HTML body of an email in iOS

Question

I'm trying to include an image in the body of an HTML email sent from an iPad. It seems impossible. I have tried to use the CID approach, but it seems that in iOS it is not possible to get/set the CID of attachments.

I've also tried to embed the image with src="data:image/png;base64, blahblahblah". When you compose the mail it seems to work, but nothing appears when the mail is received.

Any ideas?

More Detail: We are not looking for a solution where the JPEG/PNG is attached at the bottom of an email. That's easy to do with [composer addAttachmentData:mimeType:fileName:].

We are looking for a solution where the image is embedded inline in an HTML-formatted email. You could wrap a link around that IMG tag, so that when the recipient clicks the IMG, he/she will be linked out to the app's iTunes page.

Answer 1

Download the NSData+base64 category from github.

Then do the following:

NSData *imageData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:pathInDocumentDirectory(imagePath)];
NSString *base64String = [imageData base64EncodedString];
NSString *imageString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"data:image/png;base64,%@", base64String];

Finally, put the imageString in the HTML body where you want this image to appear.

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

From iphone email attachment

MFMailComposeViewController *picker = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
picker.mailComposeDelegate = self;

[picker setSubject:@"Hello"];


// Set up recipients
NSArray *toRecipients = [NSArray arrayWithObject:@"first@example.com"]; 
NSArray *ccRecipients = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"second@example.com",           @"third@example.com", nil]; 
NSArray *bccRecipients = [NSArray arrayWithObject:@"fourth@example.com"]; 

[picker setToRecipients:toRecipients];
[picker setCcRecipients:ccRecipients];  
[picker setBccRecipients:bccRecipients];

// Attach an image to the email
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"rainy" ofType:@"png"];
NSData *myData = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:path];
[picker addAttachmentData:myData mimeType:@"image/png" fileName:@"rainy"];

// Fill out the email body text
NSString *emailBody = @"It is raining";
[picker setMessageBody:emailBody isHTML:NO];

[self presentModalViewController:picker animated:YES];
[picker release];  

Answer 3

To show image in gmail, you do:

MFMailComposeViewController *mailCont = [[MFMailComposeViewController alloc] init];
    mailCont.mailComposeDelegate = self; 

    NSMutableString *emailBody = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithCapacity:20];

    NSString *linkimg = @"https://idrivethru.com/iDriveThruWeb/faces/javax.faces.resource/idrivethru_logo.png?ln=images";

    //Add the image
    [emailBody appendFormat:@"<p><a href = 'https://idrivethru.com/'> <img src='%@' align='centre' alt='iDriveThru.com'> </a></p><br/>", linkimg];

    [emailBody appendString:@"<p>This is an email with an embeded image right <b>above</b> this text</p>"];

    //NSLog(@"%@",emailBody);

    [mailCont setMessageBody:emailBody isHTML:YES];
    [self presentViewController:mailCont animated:YES completion:nil];