I have Microsoft Teams Version 1.5.00.11163 (64-bit). It was last updated on 2022-05-13. Repro Open Teams chat with an image pasted in the chat Click the image to enlarge the view Right click image and select "copy image" Open other application, such as MS Paint or Word Hit ctrl+v to paste iamge Expected result: Image is pasted into application Actual result: Nothing happens Image is not properly copied to clipboard? This is really anoying.

This makes working with images a painful exercise especially when collaborating with design teams. This issue remains - sucks (January 2023).

If this is by design, which it seems to be, it is bad design, since the image is not copied to the clipboard, but rather the image encoded as base64 string and the user has no way of knowing, short of pasting the clipboard in a text-editor or the like. Either adapt the menu header (i.e. "Copy Base64 string of Image") and/or offer the possibility of copying the image unencoded as well, like (apparently almost) anyone would expect. I am pretty certain, that a good portion of the user base wouldn't even know what a Base64 string is or how to handle that. Even if one does, it is just unexpected - to humans and most applications alike.

Please fix this. I was copying images into, gmail, jira, paint etc in the 1800s I mean who uses Word, Powerpoint etc anymore !? Suckzord!

I have the same issue and I find it really annoying. I tested only Microsoft products: Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote worked MS Paint didn't work, Visio didn't work (I'm using Visio Plan 2 MSO Version 2208 Build 16.0.15601.20280) I found a small workaround (better than to save the image): If you paste the picture in one of the working applications and copy it again, you can paste it where ever you want. That should be the normal functionality of C&P a picture out of Teams.

I'm experiencing this issue as well. Running Windows 11 Enterprise 22H2, with Microsoft Teams, I copy an image, try to paste it into MSPaint or another app and get told there is nothing in the clipboard. I consider this a bug and a glaring one at that, considering it does not conform to the expected behavior of the Copy function within the Windows or Microsoft 365 environment. It needs to be fixed.

Images copied from chat is not copied to clipboard? Not able to paste it in other applications

Andreas Ström 276

I have Microsoft Teams Version 1.5.00.11163 (64-bit). It was last updated on 2022-05-13.

Repro

Open Teams chat with an image pasted in the chat
Click the image to enlarge the view
Right click image and select "copy image"
Open other application, such as MS Paint or Word
Hit ctrl+v to paste iamge

Expected result: Image is pasted into application
Actual result: Nothing happens

Image is not properly copied to clipboard?

This is really anoying.

Kael Yao-MSFT 37,496 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-05-23T08:23:24.457+00:00

Hi @Andreas Ström

I tested with the same Teams version but was not able to reproduce this issue.
Please see the gif below:

Would the issue persist if you copy and paste images from other Microsoft applications instead of Teams?
And what Office version are you using?
HM 46 Reputation points

2022-05-25T06:59:25.65+00:00

Can confirm this bug.
Tested in mspaint and wordpad - it only pastes a really long <img src> string into wordpad.
Does not happen in msword!
Kael Yao-MSFT 37,496 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-05-26T07:39:31.227+00:00

Hi @Andreas Ström

I am writing here to confirm with you how thing going now?
If you need further help, please provide more detailed information, so that we can give more appropriate suggestions.
Andreas Ström 276 Reputation points

2022-05-27T09:40:54.867+00:00

I agree with @HM

It works in Word. But in other applications the result is:

MS paint: Nothing is pasted
MS Paint 3D: A string is pased (Base64 url?)
Wordpad: A string is pased (Base64 url?)
Irfan view: "Error. Can't allocate memory for result image(s)"

Clearly the image copy/paste handling from Teams is not handled in an optimal way.
Kael Yao-MSFT 37,496 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-05-30T06:57:20.877+00:00

To my knowledge this behavior is by design.

Since the image is stored in Azure and due to compliance reasons, Copy image would copy the encoded html of the image.
Thus the other applications would be unable to resolve it.

Here is a link to a Teams uservoice thread: Can not copy images from the chat
Please consider upvoting or leaving a comment to submit your feedback.
Thanks for your understanding.
Andreas Ström 276 Reputation points

2022-05-30T07:17:28.99+00:00

It is a terrible design.

I will upvote and hope for the best.
Matthew Bouwens 36 Reputation points

2022-05-30T21:24:46.01+00:00

Copying images embedded in chat to Outlook 365 seemed to have started working about 2 months or so ago.... (Using Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise). Initially it was only Outlook that seemed to work... But tried just now with Word and OneNote, and both of those seem to be working now as well to paste images, where a couple months ago they did not.... Attempts to select more than a couple paragraphs of text/images at once is still not working, even with the same O365 tenant apps...

Attempts to paste the same items into Wordpad results in just the text being pasted with no image... However, if I copy the paste the text/images into Word first, and then CTRL+A / CTRL+C to select all to clipboard, I can then paste into Wordpad with the image.

As can screenshot images, use Teams in browser to save the images off to disk and then paste into other apps, using "compliance" as the reasoning for why general clipboard copy/paste functionality with Teams is awful does not seem to be fully accurate, especially given several issues with it across apps in the same tenant. It is refreshing to see there have been some improvements, but several years after the product was released, much of it still seems beta quality compared to several prior MS, and other vendor products it is advertised to replace.
Sam Martin 56 Reputation points

2022-07-27T06:10:42.627+00:00

This is a major issue for us. We want to copy images out of Teams all the time, but instead of copying the actual image date (like literally every other program ever), instead it creates an img html tag with base64 data and dumps that onto the clipboard instead.

Whilst Word will interpret this monstrosity back into an image, no other programs do (paint.net, etc.)

I cannot understand how the decision was made to copy and html tag to the clipboard instead of an actual image.

I hope this gets fixed soon, currently we just have to take screenshots of images and it's a major annoyance.
Cubelodyte 36 Reputation points

2022-09-12T14:07:26.267+00:00

So, instead of copying an image as an image, Teams copies an HTML img tag with a pointer to the image.
Some applications can deal with this and some can't.

For us, Word handles the image, but Snag-it and Figma (our 2 most common uses for image sharing) can't translate the encoding.

Example:
The actual tag exceeded the character limit here by 1600 characters but the gist of it is below

<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABr0AAAOrCAY...
.
.
.
...VmuAAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" alt="image">
John Mangan 16 Reputation points

2023-01-05T17:23:15.167+00:00

I wanted to include images form Teams in an email.

Here was my workaround...

Start teams in a browser (I use chrome)
Drag the image from the chat to a new tab in the browser.
Click on the tab.
Right click and download the image.
Select a save location, file name, and type.
Norman MacDonald 31 Reputation points

2023-01-09T19:38:32.56+00:00

That is a terrible design and this is still a problem. I don't care about your security issues. Copy/paste and the clipboard are common functions and have worked the same way for years. This is inconsistent and stands in the way of productivity.
Eric B_ 25 Reputation points

2023-01-27T14:08:37.0433333+00:00

Still the same in late january 2023. Microsoft, what are you doing ?

I can understand that copy/pasting pictures as HTML strings may be a handy feature for some people working in the web, but for a vast majority of Teams users, when you copy a picture from a chat, you can expect to have a bitmap object in your clipboard, that you can paste anywhere, and it's not the case at this time.

Why not propose users the two possibilities in the contextual menu ? (copy image as a bitmap OR copy image as an HTML string). It should not be that hard to do ?
raostidhoe 60 Reputation points

2023-01-30T14:48:06.72+00:00

@Kael Yao-MSFT This behavior is defective, not by design, and your link is broken. There are numerous similar issues on the Feedback Portal, but it seems that it's completely unmoderated and disregarded. Here's one such issue.

The Windows clipboard can store multiple representations of the same data. I've included multiple examples here.

Copy Image from Chrome:

Select and Copy from Paint.Net:

Right-click --> Copy Image from Teams:

Again, this is a defect, not a feature, and it's ridiculous that you're defending this behavior.
Michael H 15 Reputation points

2023-02-17T19:44:43.0633333+00:00

Similar to John Mangan, I needed to grab an image from a Teams chat and send in an email. A screencap (Snipping tool, Snagit, etc) would have degraded the quality.

In my case though, even dragging from Teams into a browser tab would not work. Copying into ANYthing else (even Word) also wasn't working.

Since this was just a one-off instance for me, I ended up just throwing html and body tags around the img object that the clipboard kept taking, saving that to an html file, and then dropping that into a browser, and finally from there I was able to save as a proper png and attach to my email. Sheesh!
adante 10 Reputation points

2023-04-14T07:13:18.9366667+00:00

I think the truly amazing thing about this is the image copy appears to be asynchronous and quite slow. Sometimes it seems like you can't copy from teams to paste into teams 👏
Cubelodyte 36 Reputation points

2023-04-14T13:03:07.8166667+00:00

Well, at least we got a bunch of useless video effects for meetings in the last release. It's helpful to understand Microsoft's priorities.
41844108 256 Reputation points

2023-04-14T14:57:41.1833333+00:00

What you're seeing is a data URL, MS has converted the image into a text string. This img tag should render in anything that renders HTML. It's also very easy to convert. It should not be our responsibly, and most likely was untested in QA phases because MS doesn't often consider visual concepts like image and information design to be very important.

Since MS expects us to do this kind of stuff ourselves to be functional here's the tool you need to be able to see the images. Good luck: https://base64.guru/tools/data-url-to-image
Zar Shardan 10 Reputation points

2023-05-03T11:07:03.8166667+00:00

Please add another context menu item, "Copy proper image, not that other broken one"
and make it do what this site does: https://base64.guru/tools/data-url-to-image
Copying the image shouldn't be this PITAful, that requires jumping through the hoops.
Current behavior is broken, period.
41844108 256 Reputation points

2023-05-03T13:20:07.4866667+00:00

MS prides itself on “efficiency” and yet basic visual communication is wildly difficult. I work for a 60,000 person agency who’s product is literally visual communication. Nobody seems to understand why we are so inefficient except anyone struggling to function in the anti-design infrastructure of Teams.
Matt M 15 Reputation points

2023-05-10T17:22:44.68+00:00

This is a MASSIVE bug. This is not by design, or simply put, the design is wrong! This means that "copy image" actually does not, in fact, copy the image.
CZEMPIK Gregor 10 Reputation points

2023-07-11T13:10:27.7433333+00:00

i'm fighting with the same stupid issue (bad approach!), the only workaroud i know is to click on the image and press the small arrow to download this file to the local drive.

but now i have lots of files like

"MicrosoftTeams-image (39).png"

in my download folder.
David Marquez 5 Reputation points

2023-09-13T13:40:57.66+00:00

It also does not copy images from and to Microsoft Outlook.
Daniel German 0 Reputation points

2023-09-19T07:51:22.49+00:00

I also noticed a strange behavior that if I drag the mouse and select a part of the conversation with pictures then I can paste the result into microsoft word and it works, if I use ctr+A and then paste it into word I get grey areas with some emoji's multiplied.
Brenda-at-LASD 5 Reputation points

2023-11-30T17:57:47.9466667+00:00

May I ask what the "compliance reasons" are, per message by Kael Yao?
Atli Guðmundsson 15 Reputation points

2023-12-07T13:20:03.2866667+00:00
My company uses a few different collaboration tools, which means I often need to get images from Teams to someplace else.

Here is a list of workflows that I need to work, but don't:

Teams --> Aha! (❌ doesn't work)

Teams --> Confluence (❌ doesn't work)

Teams --> Jira (❌ doesn't work)

Teams --> MS Paint (❌ doesn't work) - Yes, that's right Windows Paint DOESN'T work!!!

Teams --> Azure DevOps (✅ works)

Teams --> Word (✅ works)

Now, if I use Word as an intermediary then this works:

Word --> Aha! (✅ works)

Word --> Confluence (✅ works)

Word --> Jira (✅ works)

Word --> MS Paint (✅ works)

Obviously, saving the file to my hard disk works as well.

Note that this doesnt't work in either of (I've tested both):

The old Teams classic

The new Teams NEW

And, to be absolutely clear, I'm using Microsoft Edge as a browser.
Patrick 0 Reputation points

2024-03-20T15:51:18.2833333+00:00

I am currently using version 1.7.00.6058 (64-bit) version of MS Teams and can confirm the behavior of right-click "Copy image" in MS Teams and then pasting directly into MS Paint does not work.

It appears the issues is that the "Copy image" gets you a base64 encoded image; something that looks like this:

<img src="data:image/png;base64,<your_base64_string_here>" alt="image" iscopyblocked="false">

So it's either that MS Teams isn't copying the raw image correctly, or that MS Paint hasn't been updated to handle base64 string image being pasted into it (e.g. MS Word knows how to handle this).

11 answers

Harry 66 Reputation points

2023-01-17T11:48:55.9633333+00:00

This makes working with images a painful exercise especially when collaborating with design teams.

This issue remains - sucks (January 2023).
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13 people found this answer helpful.

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42124786 60 Reputation points

2023-02-23T12:02:36.4833333+00:00

If this is by design, which it seems to be, it is bad design, since the image is not copied to the clipboard, but rather the image encoded as base64 string and the user has no way of knowing, short of pasting the clipboard in a text-editor or the like. Either adapt the menu header (i.e. "Copy Base64 string of Image") and/or offer the possibility of copying the image unencoded as well, like (apparently almost) anyone would expect.

I am pretty certain, that a good portion of the user base wouldn't even know what a Base64 string is or how to handle that. Even if one does, it is just unexpected - to humans and most applications alike.
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12 people found this answer helpful.
RyanS-0561 0 Reputation points

2023-03-15T15:18:24.16+00:00

MS you should put Sascha on retainer as your Product Manager for Teams.

Fraser Johnson 0 Reputation points

2024-02-09T04:20:48.9433333+00:00

Now I know that this 'Copy Image' is not completely broken.
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Alastair Todd 50 Reputation points

2023-03-29T11:21:52.0033333+00:00

Please fix this. I was copying images into, gmail, jira, paint etc in the 1800s

I mean who uses Word, Powerpoint etc anymore !?

Suckzord!
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CS 45 Reputation points

2023-02-08T10:31:39.07+00:00

I have the same issue and I find it really annoying.

I tested only Microsoft products:

Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote worked

MS Paint didn't work, Visio didn't work (I'm using Visio Plan 2 MSO Version 2208 Build 16.0.15601.20280)

I found a small workaround (better than to save the image):

If you paste the picture in one of the working applications and copy it again, you can paste it where ever you want.

That should be the normal functionality of C&P a picture out of Teams.
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9 people found this answer helpful.
TMB 10 Reputation points

2023-04-28T10:34:35.4966667+00:00

Isn't this often the kind of MO when it comes to MS? They add some functionality to some application with inconsistent behavior even within their own product suite. 'Copy IMAGE' means only one thing and that is 'copy the image', not 'copy image in some strange format'. This kind of behavior is grating to the user and often perceived as a bug. I honestly cannot see any logical rationale to the current behavior. If it is be important to keep it at least offer the user a way of selecting the target format.

41844108 256 Reputation points

2023-04-28T11:19:02.7633333+00:00

1000%. MS clearly doesn’t do QA testing or have anyone available to define semantics in the UX. They save some money on design and cause all their clients’s employees to have difficult, dysfunctional and frustrating work environments.
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Douglas Terborg 40 Reputation points

2023-01-26T20:12:23.3566667+00:00

I'm experiencing this issue as well. Running Windows 11 Enterprise 22H2, with Microsoft Teams, I copy an image, try to paste it into MSPaint or another app and get told there is nothing in the clipboard.

I consider this a bug and a glaring one at that, considering it does not conform to the expected behavior of the Copy function within the Windows or Microsoft 365 environment. It needs to be fixed.
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8 people found this answer helpful.

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