I took an e-mail someone sent me that had images attached and it forwarded to another address of mine no problem. Images were still attached.
Then I took an e-mail message someone sent to me that had HTML code linking to images on a web server. In this case, the size of the e-mail is smaller because it does not contain the images. Instead it contains the html code so the e-mail client that reads the e-mail on the other end knows where on the internet to find the images.
I forwarded it to my other address, and it also came through fine.
If you go to your mail prefs and click on the "viewing" tab, there is an option to turn off (or on in your case) loading of remote images. This should solve the problem if you are the one who can't see the images. If it is someone else, they will have to turn the option on in their e-mail client..
There is another reason why the images might not come through. If the reader of the message downloads their mail and then tries to read the message after closing their internet connection (off line), they will see blue boxes. The pictures are on the internet, not attached to the e-mail.
No internet connection, no picture.
This type of e-mail is mostly used for mass mailing thousands of people. The reason is that when they send say 1000 e-mails, 900 of them never get opened. If they attached 500K of graphics to every e-mail, they would have used 450 megs of bandwidth that just got thrown in the trash. This way they only need to pay for 500K of bandwidth on each of the 100 e-mails that got opened.
Why is there an option to turn off remote images?
Another reason they do it is that when your e-mail client goes to their server to get the images, they get information about you, same as if you had visited their website. You may not buy the product, but that information is worth money to them when they sell the list with your e-mail address and IP address on it.
A third reason is that they can change the content of the e-mail after they send it, by changing the pictures on their server, either to target the pictures according to who opens the e-mail, or to change the advertising over time as their marketing - sales - inventory changes.
Or maybe it's just broke.
Pete, Kevin, you said it already, but I thought I'd take a shot.
Lampie