# I see an icon rather than an image in my note on Android

**URL:** <https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [11 July 2019 22:18 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923 "2019-07-11T22:18:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![deisner](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/deisner/32/1174_2.png) [@deisner](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/deisner)\
**Post date:** [11 July 2019 22:18 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/1 "2019-07-11T22:18:43Z")

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I’m using both the desktop (1.0.160) and Android version (1.0.271) of Joplin. I have a note I created in the Desktop version (macOS), which includes an image. I have setup syncing via Dropbox and using E2EE.

So, on a Linux laptop, I see the synced note, including the image.

But on the Android app, I see a download icon instead of the image:

![Screenshot_20190711-180930](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/uploads/cozic/original/2X/4/489dc9dd1d9eaf3660f6ce8cfcf350fc8dbd2e4c.png)

I’ve synced several times over the course of a day or so, but I still don’t see an image.

What could be going on? Thanks!

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**Author:** ![tessus](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/tessus/32/13_2.png) [@tessus](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/tessus)\
**Post date:** [11 July 2019 22:23 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/2 "2019-07-11T22:23:26Z")

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What is the `Attachment download behavior` set to on your mobile?

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**Author:** ![deisner](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/deisner/32/1174_2.png) [@deisner](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/deisner)\
**Post date:** [11 July 2019 22:29 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/3 "2019-07-11T22:29:45Z")

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It’s set to “Always”. I should have added that other images are showing up on the Android app. It seems to be this particular note (and perhaps others).

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**Author:** ![laurent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laurent](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/laurent)\
**Post date:** [11 July 2019 22:43 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/4 "2019-07-11T22:43:43Z")

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Hmm, yes i saw that today when testing too. I’ll try to fix it because indeed it should only show up for resources downloaded via sync

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**Author:** ![deisner](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/deisner/32/1174_2.png) [@deisner](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/deisner)\
**Post date:** [11 July 2019 23:15 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/5 "2019-07-11T23:15:45Z")

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Thanks. And just to be clear, this is a case where the icon shows up in a note synced to the Android app, but originally created on the Desktop app.

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**Author:** ![MStrecke](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/mstrecke/32/203_2.png) [@MStrecke](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/MStrecke)\
**Post date:** [20 November 2019 22:29 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/6 "2019-11-20T22:29:56Z")

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I also have this problem in the current (Nov. 2019) Android version.

After reading this thread I switched the _attachment download behaviour_ from “always” to “automatic”. When opening the note containing the image the icon changed into an hour glass and the image was downloaded.

This is what the option “automatic” is supposed to do, but I would have expected that “always” would have downloaded the attachment when it encountered the attachment link during sync.

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**Author:** ![laurent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laurent](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/laurent)\
**Post date:** [20 November 2019 23:34 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/7 "2019-11-20T23:34:18Z")

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“always” should indeed download the images all the time, but it seems there’s a bug and in some cases it only download 3, then wait for the next sync, download 3 more, etc.

I can’t replicate this unfortunately so haven’t been able to fix it.

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**Author:** ![Isenbeck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f0a364/32.png) [@Isenbeck](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/Isenbeck)\
**Post date:** [23 October 2020 13:00 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/8 "2020-10-23T13:00:34Z")

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I also have this issue. On the android, I can see a broken image icon.

I'm using Windows desktop app and Android app.

If I go to the edit mode then I can see the link such as:  
![108 ... .png](file://C: ... /JOPLIN/JoplinProfile/resources/b4ea ... .png?t=160 ... 38)

Looks like it is trying to open images on my Windows desktop computer?

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**Author:** ![thetrystero](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex028/user_avatar/discourse.joplinapp.org/thetrystero/32/13847_2.png) [@thetrystero](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/thetrystero)\
**Post date:** [19 July 2021 23:32 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/9 "2021-07-19T23:32:37Z")

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hello, anyone have this fixed yet? I've synced up my notes over synology webdav (can't use docker because my nas does not use an intel chip). On all my desktops, images sync fine. but for some reason the android app just simply doesn't want to download resources. I've tried "always", "automatic", "manual". I've trying clearing cache, clearing data. I even tried reinstalling. There was one time it managed to download several thousand, but i had to continuously fiddle around with the attachment download behavior it would download like a couple hundred, then a couple like tens etc. and eventually just stopped downloading when it got to like 3000. I have more than 10,000 images. Even if I wanna load each image individually within a note, when i click on the little download icon on an image it doesn't do anything. So bottom line I really can't get all images to display. ideally what i'd like to do is to be able to just transfer everything over usb since it's over 1GB of images directly to the resources folder, but it's buried in /data/data/ which i don't have access to because i'm not rooted.

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**Author:** ![Longin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@Longin](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/Longin)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2023 17:14 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/10 "2023-05-08T17:14:02Z")

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Hello  
I got the same problem.  
The images on Android are shown as mentioned icon and it seems they are not correctly downloaded.

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**Author:** ![laurent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laurent](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/laurent)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2023 17:59 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/11 "2023-05-08T17:59:09Z")

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Closed on 8 May 2023 17:59 UTC



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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![laurent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laurent](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/u/laurent)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2023 17:59 UTC](https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/i-see-an-icon-rather-than-an-image-in-my-note-on-android/2923/12 "2023-05-08T17:59:59Z")

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This particular bug was fixed 4 years ago. If there's still a related issue, please open a new thread and provide the complete information