Email Template Image Display Issue

The issue you're experiencing is common when working with images in email templates on a local development environment. Here's why this is happening and how to fix it:

The Problem

When you use http://localhost:8000/mediafiles/... in your email template:

• This URL only works on your local machine
• Email clients (like Gmail, Outlook, etc.) cannot access your localhost
• The email recipient's computer has no way to connect to your local development server

The external image URL works because it's publicly accessible from anywhere on the internet.

Solutions

Here are several approaches to fix this issue:

1. Use a publicly accessible URL for production

For production environments, ensure your media files are served from a publicly accessible domain:

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<img src="https://yourdomain.com/mediafiles/image.jpg" style="width: 60px; height: 60px; border-radius: 50%; margin-right: 10px;" />

2. Embed the image directly in the email

For local testing and production, you can embed images directly using base64 encoding:

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<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,BASE64_ENCODED_IMAGE_DATA" style="width: 60px; height: 60px; border-radius: 50%; margin-right: 10px;" />

You'll need to read the image file and convert it to base64 in your code before sending the email.

3. Use a temporary public hosting service

For testing, you could temporarily upload your image to a service like Imgur or AWS S3 and use that URL.

4. Use CID (Content-ID) attachments

You can attach the image to the email and reference it using CID:

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<img src="cid:image_identifier" style="width: 60px; height: 60px; border-radius: 50%; margin-right: 10px;" />

This requires configuring your email sending code to attach the image with the correct Content-ID.

Best Practice

The most reliable approach is typically to either:

1. Use base64 embedding for small images
2. Host images on a CDN or public server for larger images

Remember that many email clients block external images by default for security reasons, so critical images should be embedded when possible.