Scenario
You are creating your email signature and wish to use linked images, also known as web-hosted images. You want to host images in your Google Drive storage and use those in your template.
For more information on using web-hosted images in your signature, see our resources on using linked images. vs
Pre-requisites
To use Google Drive, ensure you have a Google Account set up.
Resolution
WARNING: Google does not recommend using web-hosted images from Google Drive, and this solution may become ineffective without warning depending on changes to Google services. We recommend using your own site or a dedicated image hosting site when linking images.
To host images using Google drive:
- Log in your Google Drive account.
- From the menu pane, select +New, then select File upload.
- Locate your image file, then select Open to upload your image to Google Drive.
- Find your image file in Google Drive. Open the vertical ellipsis menu by selecting the icon, then select Share.
This opens the Share window.
- Under General access, select Anyone with the link from the dropdown.
- Select Copy link. The image link is copied to the clipboard. Select Done.
- Paste the link into any Text program, such as Notepad.
- Identify the image ID section of the link. This can be found between the final two forward slash symbols in the link.
For example:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SDbKsxMh7KNYpbWsSZrrZHt1nMJE-03t/view?usp=drive_linkCopy this ID section of the link.
- In Exclaimer, open your signature template in the Signature Designer.
- Select or add an Image/Logo element in the template. If you are selecting an existing image, expand the Image Source section in the Properties pane. If you are adding a new Image/Logo element, this opens the Image/Logo window.
- Under Linked Image URL, enter:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/
- Paste the copied image ID at the end of this text.
For example:
The image can now be seen in the signature template and in the image preview in the Image/Logo window.
- If you are adding a new Image/Logo element, select OK to close the Image/Logo window and add your image to the template.
- Select SAVE CHANGES to save the changes made to the signature template.