Images breaking when sending mail using SmtpClient
I am sending a mail using C# using the SmtpClient class. I am doing the following things before sending the mail.
var mailMessage = new MailMessage();
model.ToAddresses.ForEach(to => mailMessage.To.Add(to));
mailMessage.Subject = "Test Email - By Yasser";
mailMessage.Body = String.Format("{0}{1}{2}",
"<html><body>",
GetEmailContent(model),
"</body></html>");
mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
return MailService.SendEmail(mailMessage);
and below is my MailService class:
public class MailService
{
public static bool SendEmail(MailMessage mailMessage)
{
var smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
try
{
smtpClient.Send(mailMessage);
return true;
}
catch(Exception exp)
{
return false;
}
}
}
Now when I send the mail, the mail gets sent, here is what I get as the content of the mail in outlook when I press the view source. Below is the content of the email with view source (Obviously I have kept only a part of the image data)
<html>
<body>
<h1>Test</h1>
<h2>Hello World</h2>
<h3>Missing close h3 tag</h3>
<p>
<a href="www.google.com">
<img src="data:image/gif;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgEAYABgAAD/4Q8HRXhpZgAAT" />
</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>
So this appears broken(the images) in the mail, but when I copy this source and paste it into an editor and open the file using a browser all seems good (even the images).
Update : Added image of the mail from outlook
Any ideas ????
Answer
This is what I tried and works for me, tested in outlook, thunderbird and gmail. WORKS FINE !
You might want to check out the following resources I referred to make this happen :
- Using LinkedResource Class for Sending HTML E-mail in .NET 2.0
- Sending emails with embedded images in html view using linked resources class
- How do I embed an image in a .NET HTML Mail Message?
- System.Net.Mail FAQ
Sample Code :
// we need to use the prefix 'cid' in the img src value
string emailReadyHtml = string.empty;
emailReadyHtml += "<p>Hello World, below are two embedded images : </p>";
emailReadyHtml += "<img src=\"cid:yasser\" >";
emailReadyHtml += "<img src=\"cid:smile\" >";
MailMessage mailMessage = new MailMessage();
mailMessage.To.Add("[email protected]");
mailMessage.From = new MailAddress("[email protected]", "Info");
mailMessage.Subject = "Test Mail";
mailMessage.IsBodyHtml = true;
string image1Path = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/Content/images/yasser.jpg");
byte[] image2Bytes = someArrayOfByte;
ContentType c = new ContentType("image/jpeg");
// create image resource from image path using LinkedResource class.
LinkedResource linkedResource1 = new LinkedResource(imagePath);
linkedResource1.ContentType = c ;
linkedResource1.ContentId = "yasser";
linkedResource1.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.Base64;
// the linked resource can be created from bytes also, which may be stored in database (which was my case)
LinkedResource linkedResource2 = new LinkedResource(new MemoryStream(image2Bytes));
linkedResource2.ContentType = c;
linkedResource2.ContentId = "smile";
linkedResource2.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.Base64;
AlternateView alternativeView = AlternateView.CreateAlternateViewFromString(emailReadyHtml, null, MediaTypeNames.Text.Html);
alternativeView.ContentId = "htmlView";
alternativeView.TransferEncoding = TransferEncoding.SevenBit;
alternativeView.LinkedResources.Add(linkedResource1) ;
alternativeView.LinkedResources.Add(linkedResource2);
mailMessage.AlternateViews.Add(alternativeView);
SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient();
smtpClient.Send(mailMessage);