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I am a novice with Joomla and have recently taken the position at an organization managing the CMS.

We are writing a newsletter and I want to embed a youtube video within the mailing. After following the steps for updating Joomla's iframe restrictions (tinyMCE extension), I see the video embedded in the mail, but when it is actually sent, the video is not accessible.

All the articles I am finding are for embedding a youtube video into a Joomla page.

Any advice will be appreciated! And since I am so new to this, Layman's Terms would be appreciated! Thank you kindly. Renee F

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  • As Laryn says, this isn't possible. A good rule of thumb for what you can embed in an email is, "Have I ever seen this in an email I've received?" Given that email marketers will add everything they possibly can, you can be sure that if you've never seen an embedded video, a signup form/survey, etc., it's because it's not possible. Aug 20, 2019 at 17:20
  • The workaround I've seen, which I don't generally endorse because it's misleading, is to take a screenshot of the video while paused in Youtube (such that it has the controls and the central "Play" button in the image). Embed the image, and link the image to Youtube. When someone goes to press "Play" it will open the video in their web browser. Aug 20, 2019 at 17:22

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You probably won't have much luck embedding the actual video into a mailing due to restrictions in email clients. One workaround could be embedding a screenshot of the video which is then linked to the webpage where the video can be played (so when the screenshot is clicked, they are sent to the website to view).

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  • Thank you - yes that is my current workaround but I was hoping I was just missing something!
    – Ren Fou
    Aug 21, 2019 at 16:16
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As Laryn said, email clients don't like iframes. This is because of the potential for malicious content, so if you use iframes in your email not only will they not function but they could flag your entire message as junk and lower your delivery rate.

Laryn's answer is the best answer for basic inclusion of a video in your email (link an screenshot to the video).

However, you might want to use the public archive of the Civi Mailing on your website, i.e. the link for joomla will be something like https://[yourdomain]/index.php?option=com_civicrm&task=civicrm/mailing/view&reset=1&id=[CIVI Mailing ID]. (That's also the "read in your browser" link that might show at the top of your emails.) And for that, you may want to embed the video rather than having a link. To do that --after the mailing has been completely sent! --, you would need to edit the code in the database to replace the linked image with the appropriate iframe. A careful layperson who knows something of html can do this:

  1. In your webhost's control panel (not Joomla, the host) use the utility phpadmin to access your database.
  2. Find the table civicrm_mailing and Browse
  3. Find the line for your mailing and Edit.
  4. In the body_html field, find the ...image here... tag of the linked image. Wrap those tags in the appropriate iframe like so:

<iframe [details of the embedded content]> <a>...image here...</a> </iframe>

  1. Click "Go" to save your changes.

The point of wrapping the iframe around your original content is so that any browsers that don't support iframes will then show the original linked image.

If you do this, be aware that if you then reuse that mailing in Civi, you may have to deal with an inappropriate iframe. Not sure how Civi handles this.

Here's an example from our website. I've not only changed the body_html of the mailing to include the iframe, but I've embedded the actual mailing in a joomla article so it is better integrated into our website.

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  • Thank you! This will be something I can try out!
    – Ren Fou
    Aug 21, 2019 at 16:17

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