What’s that new Download Image button in Gmail?

Gmail_Download_buttonHave you noticed this “download” button pop up in the bottom right corner of images in your emails lately?

This isn’t a new feature, since Google hasn’t posted anything about it and others in the email marketing community seem pretty stumped about it.
It turns out that this is most likely a bug, and (knowing Google) one that will probably be fixed soon.

Here’s what we know:

  • This button only appears on unlinked images.
  • This button doesn’t appear on small images. (300×225 was the smallest image we tested that prompted the download button.)
  • If the image file is large, but the image style is set to display a small version of the image, the download button will appear. Since this isn’t best practice for email images, it’s not a good work around. (Always use real-sized images in your emails!)

What goes into a great marketing email?

Download the anatomy of a marketing email template


Until the bug is resolved, if you want to ensure that your recipients don’t see a download button on the unlinked images in your email you can fake a link by using a pound sign as your URL, like this:

Fake-URL

We’ll update this post when the bug seems to be fixed!


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