NeutralAxis

As far as I’m aware, in the past, there’s been no simple method for inserting images inline into Gmail messages.  Inserting as an attachment is simple, but making an image show within the body of the message has been difficult at best.  A Gmail labs feature that I’ve just noticed has now taken care of that problem.  I’m not sure how old this feature is, but its new to me.

Step 1:  From your main Gmail screen find the little green labs icon and click it.

Step 2:  Scroll down the list of available labs features until you find the “Inserting Images” one and enable it.

Step 3:  Begin to compose an email and verify that you’re in Rich Text Format mode.  If you have an option labeled “<plain text” on your menu bar, then you are already in RTF mode.  You’ll also see a new icon on the toolbar for inserting the image.  Click that and you’ll get the window shown.

Either upload an image from your computer, or provide the URL of the image you’d like to use.  Done.

Just because you’ve inserted the image inline doesn’t necessarily mean that your recipient will see it though.  Many email systems, including Gmail, give the user the option to not display inline images as a security measure.