Outlook 2016: “The linked image cannot be displayed”

Topic

New Reply

I have recently upgraded to Office 2016, including Outlook, and now I find that when an email message has embedded images, they do not display. Instead, I see a red X and the message “The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file and location”. How do I verify that? What is the correct file and location? If I click on the message, the web page sitting behind it opens normally. The problem does not affect messages with attachments of any type, which will open normally. The problem is only with embedded images.

I have tried all the suggestions I can find on the web, including a reset of Internet Explorer, but nothing works. Any ideas please?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Problem solved. It was because “Temporary Internet Files” was not configured correctly.

Reply | Quote

I would love it if you would expand on the resolution to this problem. Thanks.

Reply | Quote

OK, here goes. My understanding is that when an email with embedded images is opened, the embedded image links are placed in a subfolder within Temporary Internet Files, from where they go to the Net and the actual images (or whatever) are retrieved and displayed in the email. When the email is first opened, if response time is a bit slow, you may see a box (or boxes) with a placeholder in the top left corner until the process completes. If for some reason the image (or whatever) cannot be retrieved from the Net, then the placeholder icon changes to a red X and the error message appears.

In my case (and this may not apply to all), I have two physical hard drives. Drive C is where the OS and programs are placed; drive E is my data drive holding documents, photos, etc. I reasoned that because the links are a type of data, I would put the Temporary Internet Files folder on drive E, but that did not work. The Outlook program (outlook.exe) is of course on drive C, and evidently outlook requires the Temporary Internet Files to be on the same drive. Once I put the TIF folder on drive C, I no longer had a problem.

You have to define the Temporary Internet Files folder in Internet Explorer, even if you never use IE for anything else. Open IE, go to Tools > Internet Options, and in the “Browsing history” section, select Settings. In the “Temporary Internet Files” tab you should see where the folder is currently located, and the size allocated to it. Mine says “C:Temporary Internet Files”, and the allocation is 250 MB, which I would recommend. If your Temporary Internet Files is not working correctly, try “Move folder” to move it to somewhere else, then delete the old folder (it should no longer be in use), then move it again from the new location back to the original one. If the target folder does not exist, IE will create it, but notice that IE will append “Temporary Internet Files” to the name of the new location. So if you want to create “C:Temporary Internet Files” as I have , just move it to “C:”.

Note also that for embedded images to display correctly, there are a couple of settings in IE which must be set correctly. Have a look at the thread “MS Outlook 2010 won’t display linked images (Windows 7 Pro x64)” which is dated 2016-05-05 and covers much the same ground. Note particularly my posts # 6, 11 and 15 re needed IE settings.

Reply | Quote