January 12, 2010
When you need to tell someone about your YouTube creation, you can send a link – but it is cool to have the video ‘embedded’ in your email. The message will then display the ‘poster image’ of your video, and allow the recipient to just to click ‘play’.
Apple Mail does not normally allow you to compose an HTML mail message, but there is a workaround that allows you to embed a YouTube Video in an Apple Mail message.
Addendum December 2011.
Dave’s comment below describes a much easier method to embed a video than the work around ‘Method Two’.
I would recommend you try Method One first. Consider Method Two deprecated.
Place your cursor just above the left hand top corner of the video and click and drag it to just below the bottom right hand corner.
Select copy.
Open a new mail message, and paste into the body.
No problems.
Addendum March 2011 – Recent changes to Apple Mail and YouTube have made this process far more difficult than it should be. It still works, and the extra steps are now noted in this updated version of the post. However, you may wonder if it is now worth all the effort.
Addendum December 2011.
Dave’s comment below describes a much easier method to embed a video than the work around ‘Method Two’.
I would recommend you try Method One first. Consider Method Two deprecated.
Method One (Dave’s Method)
In Safari, Open the page for the you tube video that you want to embed.Place your cursor just above the left hand top corner of the video and click and drag it to just below the bottom right hand corner.
Select copy.
Open a new mail message, and paste into the body.
No problems.
Method Two (Original Workaround – Now deprecated)
Thanks to bytes.com for providing a lead on this.Addendum March 2011 – Recent changes to Apple Mail and YouTube have made this process far more difficult than it should be. It still works, and the extra steps are now noted in this updated version of the post. However, you may wonder if it is now worth all the effort.
Step One
Go to YouTube, locate the video you want to embed, and copy the text in the ‘Embed’ section on the top right of the page, as in this screenshot.
NB You now also have to select the checkbox ‘Use old embed code’, as below
Step Two
Open the application TextEdit, create a New Document (File>New), and paste in the text you have copied from YouTube.
It will look something like this
Step Three
Change the format of this document using Format>Make Plain Text
Step Four
Save this document as message.html
Step Five
Open the newly saved document in Safari, by navigating to message.html using File > Open File…. (or Command-O)
Step Six
In Safari, select File > Mail Contents of this Page, or Command-I.
This will magically create a new message in Mail containing the embedded video.
Step Six – Save the message as Stationary
Addendum – Since Mail 4.2 and you need these somewhat awkward extra steps
- Select ‘Save as Stationary’ from the file menu.
- Quit that message and open a new message.
- Hit the ‘Show Stationary’ button and select the stationary you have just saved from the Custom menu
Step Seven – Edit and Send
Edit the message in Mail as you normally would, and then send it on its way
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