Email your photos

You can email photos directly from iPhoto, using themes (designs) that beautifully arrange your photos. Each theme includes placeholder text that you can edit to add descriptions, captions, or other text alongside the photos.

If you want recipients to be able to use the photos you send, rather than simply view them, you can attach the photo files to your email message. Recipients can then download the photos from the email message and print them, use them in their own projects, and so on.

You can email up to 10 photos (however, some of your recipients might use Internet service providers that don’t accept messages over a certain size).

If you use the Mail application included with Mac OS X, iPhoto automatically uses the first account in Mail Accounts preferences to email your photos. You can set up different iPhoto Mail accounts and choose which one to use when you send the email.

To email photos:

Select the photo (or photos) you want to send, up to 10 per email.
You can send photos from your photo library or an album, but not from a slideshow or a project (such as a book, card, or calendar).
In the toolbar, click the Share button, and then choose Email from the pop-up menu.
If this is the first time you’re using iPhoto to email photos, select the email account you want to use, click Setup, complete the requested information, and then click Save.
If you don’t see your email provider, click Cancel and follow the steps in the task below to set up your email account.
Your photos appear in the email window, presented in a theme.
Customize the email by doing any of the following:
- To change the theme, select one of the themes to the right of the email.
- To rearrange photos on the page or to reposition a photo in its frame, drag the photo.
- To zoom in on a photo, click it and then drag the zoom slider.
- To add text, click the placeholder text and type your own. When text is selected, a formatting palette appears, with controls for changing the text’s font, size, and horizontal and vertical alignment.
  If you don’t want to include text, you can leave the placeholder text as it is (or delete it); it won’t appear in the email.
To include the individual photo files in the email, select “Attach photos to message” (below the theme thumbnails on the right).
When you select this checkbox, iPhoto sends each photo as a separate file, so that your recipient can print the photos individually. If you select this option, choose Optimized from the Photo Size pop-up menu to compress the photos to a size that’s appropriate for emailing. The files are sent in a single attachment.
If you don’t select this option, the photos in the theme are combined into a single image. The email is smaller, so it takes less time to send and to download, but your recipient can print the photos only as part of the theme, not individually.
At the top of the email window, type the recipient’s email address (in the To field) and a subject line.
If the From field doesn’t display the address you want to use, click the From field and choose another address.
If the email address you want to use isn’t included, see the task below to add it.
When you’re ready to email your photos, click Send.

To set up a Photo Mail account:

Choose iPhoto > Preferences, and then click Accounts.
If you’re in full-screen view, move your pointer to the top of the screen to make the menu bar appear.
Click the Add (+) button in the lower-left corner.
Click Email, and then click Add.
Choose your email service provider.
If your service provider isn’t listed, choose Other.
Type the requested information.
If you use the Mail application included with Mac OS X, some account information might be filled in already. If you’re not sure what to type, contact your service provider.

You can set up more than one iPhoto Mail account by repeating these steps for each account. When you send an iPhoto email, you can change the outgoing account by clicking the From pop-up menu and choosing an account.

To view your photo email messages:

To view email you send from iPhoto, you need to send yourself each email message. iPhoto can automatically send you a “blind” carbon copy (blind means that your recipients won’t see that you are a recipient too).

Choose iPhoto > Preferences, and then click Advanced.
Select “Automatically Bcc myself.”

You can also see whether or when you emailed a photo. Select the photo, click the Info button in the toolbar, and look in the Sharing section to see to whom and when the photo was sent. Click the entry in the Sharing section to open an email you’ve sent, so you can view, edit, or resend it. (If you don’t see a Sharing section, you haven’t shared the photo.)