About photo e-mails

You can add photos to e-mail messages in two ways: inline (Part of the body of an e-mail message.) or in a photo e-mail (A Windows Live Mail e-mail message containing multiple photos in a photo layout.) . Photo e-mails offer the following advantages over inserting photos inline or adding them to e-mail messages as attachments:

• If you create a photo e-mail while you're signed in to Windows Live Mail with a Windows Live ID (The user name and password that you use to sign in to any Windows Live, MSN, or Office Live sites and services. If you have a Passport Network, Hotmail, or Messenger account, you can use it as your Windows Live ID.) , you can save high-quality versions of the photos on Windows Live servers. These photos are linked to thumbnail versions in the e-mail. This means that the e-mail will be smaller and that the recipients can view the higher resolution photos in an online slideshow without downloading them. For more information, see View and download photos in photo e-mails.
• You can use more formatting options with photo e-mails than with inline photos. With photo e-mails you can add captions, colored borders, and more. For more information, see Format photo e-mails.
• Photo e-mails make it easy to re-order the photos in the e-mail, allowing you to change the size and arrangement of the thumbnail images and their captions.
• You can send up to 500 images in photo e-mails per calendar month, and upload up to 500 megabytes (MB) of images to the Windows Live servers in each photo e-mail.
• If you're a Windows Live Mail user and someone sends you a photo e-mail, you can download all of the high resolution photos to your computer at the same time. For more information about installing Windows Live Mail, see Install and run Windows Live Mail for the first time.