send emails with images in them using ASP.NET 4.0 and C#.

There are a few different ways that you can send images via email. The easiest way to do this is to simply make the body of the email html and add in an <img> tag that links directly to the image on the internet. However, because this has been abused by email spammers an image sent like that will most likely not be viewed depending on the recipients email settings. In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to send an email with an attached image displayed in the messages body. 

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Adding the Default.aspx PageTo demonstrate this I am going to create a simple web site with a button in it that I will use to send the email. At this point in the tutorial I have created a new ASP.NET Empty Web Site. To begin:

1. Right click the project in your solution explorer.
2. Select add new item...
3. Select a web form.
4. Name it 'Default.aspx'.
5. Click add.
6. Open Default.aspx up to design mode.
7. Drag and drop a button onto the web form.

Adding the ImageFor this example, I will be adding an image to the project so that we can simplify the code here, however you can use whatever image you want. To do this:

1. Right click the project in your solution explorer.
2. Select add existing item...
3. Select the image you want to add.
4. Click add.

Sending the EmailNext, we need to add in the code to send the email. It is important to understand that you will need access to your own email account to which you know the SMTP settings in order to send an email. For this code sample I wll be configuring the SMTP settings to send an email using Gmail. However, you can use whatever email you want as long as it is configured properly. To begin:

1. Open Default.aspx to design mode.
2. Double click the button we added earlier to generate the click event method for it.
3. Add the following using statements at the top of the Default.aspx.cs class: 
4. 
   

5. using System.Net.Mail;
   using System.Text;
   using System.Net;

   ButtonClick _Event

   {
       //create the message
       MailMessage mail = new MailMessage();
       //add the email address we will be sending the message to
       mail.To.Add("Recipient@gmail.com");
       //add our email here
       mail.From = new MailAddress("Sender@Gmail.com");
       //email's subject
       mail.Subject = "In line image test";
       //email's body, this is going to be html. note that we attach the image as using cid
       mail.Body = "Hello email. <br/> <img src=\"cid:tmpImage.gif\">";
       //set email's body to html
       mail.IsBodyHtml = true;
           
       //add our attachment
       Attachment imgAtt = new Attachment(Server.MapPath("tmpImage.gif"));
       //give it a content id that corresponds to the src we added in the body img tag
       imgAtt.ContentId = "tmpImage.gif";
       //add the attachment to the email
       mail.Attachments.Add(imgAtt);
    
       //setup our smtp client, these are Gmail specific settings
       SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient("smtp.gmail.com", 587);
       client.EnableSsl = true; //ssl must be enabled for Gmail
       //our Gmail account credentials
       NetworkCredential credentials = new NetworkCredential("Sender@Gmail.com", "Password");
       //add credentials to our smtp client
       client.Credentials = credentials;
    
       try
       {
           //try to send the mail message
           client.Send(mail);
       }
       catch
       {
           //some feedback if it does not work
           Button1.Text = "Fail";
       }
   }