Drag an Image block into your email, then click Choose an image on it, or Choose image in the toolbar.
The window that opens has a tab for each place a picture can come from.
- Your media shows your 30 newest pictures. To find an older one, search for its name or tag.
- Stock searches free stock photos from Pexels. The one you pick is copied into your Media, so your email doesn't rely on another website.
- Upload takes a picture from your computer, up to 10MB.
Lighter copies of big photos
When you upload a large photo through Upload, a smaller copy is made on your computer before anything goes up, and you choose between them under Before it goes up. Made smaller is marked Recommended: it looks the same in an inbox and opens faster on a phone. As it came keeps the original.
An animated GIF can't be made smaller without losing the animation. A large one shows a warning, and you can choose Use it anyway or Pick another.
Gmail and Outlook don't show SVG pictures, so uploading one shows a warning too. Save it as a PNG or JPEG and upload that instead.
The weight warning
If the pictures in an email add up to more than 2MB, a yellow note at the top of the designer gives the total. A heavy email opens slowly on a phone using mobile data. Swap the largest picture for a smaller one, or shorten an animation. You can close the note, and it comes back when the set of pictures in the email changes.
Size, crop and shape
Drag the handles on a picture to resize it. When a picture is cropped, select it and drag the photo inside its frame to choose which part shows. Under More, Shape gives the photo a shape, from Square and Round to Arch and Blob.
When the email is sent, each photo is cropped to match what you see in the designer, so it looks the same in Gmail. Animated GIFs aren't cropped, so in some inboxes an animation shows at its own shape.
Words on a picture
Drop a Text or Button block onto a picture to place it on top, at the top, middle or bottom of the picture. Use the arrows on its toolbar to move it to another of those places. Words on a picture are real text, so they still show when an inbox hides pictures.
Alt text
Many inboxes hide pictures until the reader asks to see them. Alt text is what they read in the picture's place. Select a picture and click its alt text pill in the toolbar, which reads Describe it until the picture has a description. Say in a few words what the picture shows, such as “Blue speckled mug on an oak table”, and click Save.
A picture you choose from your media or upload starts with its file name as its alt text. The pill turns amber while a picture has no description, or one that looks like a file name.
A picture with words on it has no alt text pill. It goes out as a background, which inboxes don't describe, so the words on it are what someone without pictures reads.
Product pictures
The product blocks in Ready-made, under Your shop, take a product's picture, name, price and link from your catalogue. Click Choose product on the block and pick one. A product card left without a product stops the email from sending, so choose one or delete the card. See Connecting Shopify.