Sending Email With Inline Images JavaMail API

Here is an example to send an HTML email from your machine with inline image. Here we have used SMPT server via which emails are sent to our destination email address.

To send a email with an inline image, the steps followed are:

1. Get a Session
2. Create a default MimeMessage object and set From, To, Subject in the message.
3. Create a MimeMultipart object.
4. In our example we will have an HTML part and an Image in the email. So first create the HTML content and set it in the multipart object as:
   

   // first part (the html)
   BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
   String htmlText = "<H1>Hello</H1><img src=\"cid:image\">";
   messageBodyPart.setContent(htmlText, "text/html");
   // add it
   multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
   

5. Next add the image by creating a Datahandler as follows:
   

   // second part (the image)
   messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
   DataSource fds = new FileDataSource("D:\\Javas\\mailapi\\100.png");
   messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(fds));
   messageBodyPart.setHeader("Content-ID", "<image>");
   

6. Next set the multipart in the message as follows:
   

   // second part (the image)
   message.setContent(multipart);
   

7. Send the message using the Transport object.

Example of sending email with Inline Images JavaMail API-

import java.util.Properties;
import javax.activation.DataHandler;
import javax.activation.DataSource;
import javax.activation.FileDataSource;
import javax.mail.BodyPart;
import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeBodyPart;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart;
 
public class SendInlineImagesInEmail {
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  Properties props = new Properties();
  props.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
  props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465");
  props.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class","javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
  props.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
  props.put("mail.smtp.port", "465");
  final String username="dineshonjava";
  final String password="***********";
  Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props,
   new javax.mail.Authenticator() {
    protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
     return new PasswordAuthentication(username,password);
    }
   });
 
  try {
    Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
   message.setFrom(new InternetAddress("dineshonjava@gmail.com"));
   message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO,InternetAddress.parse("admin@dineshonjava.com"));
   message.setSubject("Welcome Mail Tutorial!!!");
   
  // This mail has 2 part, the BODY and the embedded image
         MimeMultipart multipart = new MimeMultipart("related");
         // first part (the html)
         BodyPart messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
         String htmlText = "<H1>Hello</H1><img src=\"cid:image\">";
         messageBodyPart.setContent(htmlText, "text/html");
         // add it
         multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
         // second part (the image)
         messageBodyPart = new MimeBodyPart();
         DataSource fds = new FileDataSource("D:\\Javas\\mailapi\\100.png");
         messageBodyPart.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(fds));
         messageBodyPart.setHeader("Content-ID", "<image>");
         // add image to the multipart
         multipart.addBodyPart(messageBodyPart);
         // put everything together
         message.setContent(multipart);
   // Send the actual HTML message, as big as you like
  Transport.send(message);
   System.out.println("Mail sent successfully!!!");
 
  } catch (MessagingException e) {
   throw new RuntimeException(e);
  }
 }
}

As we are using the SMTP server provided by the host provider SMTP, we need to authenticate the username and password. The javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication class is used to authenticate the password.


Verify Output
You should see the following message on the command console:

Mail sent successfully!!!

As I'm sending an email to my gmail address through SMTP, the following mail would be received in my gmail account inbox: