Resize picture when emailing with Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Mail

Recently, I've set up a PC for computer novices. The PC came with Vista installed, and for managing photo's I let it use Windows Photo Gallery, for email I used Windows Mail (which both came pre-installed). These programs were both wonderfully simple and easy to use, ideal for a computer novice. When you selected a bunch of pictures in Photo Gallery and pressed 'Email' it gave you a pop-up to resize the pictures for emailing purposes (down from 12MP to something more reasonable), a total size estimate and then attached them in a new email in Windows Mail. However, I made use of the free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 and then installed the Live versions of these two programs. Now, when I press 'Email' on a photo in Live Photo Gallery, it simply attaches them to a new email in Live Mail, without asking to resize them. This has made the process of emailing a photo considerably more complicated, it's just not an option to mail the huge original. The dialog to resize seems to be a function of the email program, since Outlook 2007 here does give this dialog. But I don't want them to use Outlook, I want to use Live Mail. Also, when emailing a single photo from the default Windows Photo Viewer, it also gives the resize dialog. The same for 'Send to Email Recipient' in the right click context menu on a file. Everything seems to give this dialog, except Live Mail. So, is there any way I can use the combination of Live Photo Gallery + Live Mail with the possibility of automatically resizing pictures? I'm positive the mail and photo programs in Vista did this, right? EDIT: I came across this in a Google search:

  1. Select the photo you want to send, and then click E‑mail.
  2. Select a size, and then click Attach. Make sure that the Total estimated size is less than 2 MB.

So you would say that this is something that should be possible. So why doesn't it work for me?

asked Dec 20, 2009 at 18:04 123 1 1 silver badge 6 6 bronze badges

4 Answers 4

The resize option is not given unless you are signed in to Windows Live.

answered Dec 20, 2009 at 22:10 user1931 user1931 Awesome! Thanks :) I've set up a Gmail account, but I'll "wrap" a Live account around it then. Commented Dec 20, 2009 at 22:13 You're very welcome :) Commented Dec 20, 2009 at 22:14

since you're using gmail, you might as well use Picasa instead of Windows Live Photo Gallery, they work together nicely and of course you can easily resize images for mailing.

answered Dec 21, 2009 at 1:19 Molly7244 Molly7244

Anyone's best bet for resizing images is to do them all before sending them in an email. Search Google for "Windows Image Resizer". The program is free from a MSVP and has been recently upgraded. It works great with Vista, 7 and 8.

Select a single photo, a few photos or all the photos in a folder. Right click on the highlighted images, choose Resize. There are several default sizes or you can customize the size. You can also choose to save all the originals and have the smaller photos saved beside the originals.

This takes the hassle out of depending on an email program to resize them for you. Many email programs do not offer a resize feature.

This is a wonderful tool which harkens back to Windows Power Toys for XP.

I am an independent Windows Remote Support/Windows Tutor who works from home. I connect to computers around the world every day. I have to know the simplest and most efficient ways to help people of all ages to better understand basic to advanced PC (desktop/laptop) tasks. I am 58 years old and have been an independent "helper" since 2006.