Problems w/ AirBNB App Picture Attachments

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I’m in the habit of sending screen prints or jpeg pictures to guests via the AirBNB app. I do this with Self checkin instructions or more recently with AirBNB’s Covid19 updated cancellation policy.

What I began to notice in the last month is that the quality of the attachments are poor (rather blurry) and where you once could click on the picture to enlarge, that no longer is possible. These are the same pictures I’ve always sent that used to come across crisp and clear, so the problems are not with the attachment. I am attaching a screen print below of what I’m describing. In the attached correspondence I included the link, but I also included a screen print … you can see the lesser quality.

Note: I do most of my correspondence via IPhone or IPad.

Has anyone else noticed this difference, have explanation or remedy.

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It looks like a problem with scaling the image, but there may also be compression artifacts.

I can’t tell whether this is just due to how it’s being displayed on your device or if the picture was modified before attaching. Assuming you captured this on a iPhone/iPad, have you tried pulling up the conversation using a browser on a laptop or desktop?

Edit: If it looks better on a laptop/desktop browser, it might also look better for a guest reading it, but no guarantee.

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Does your browser have the option to “request desktop site”?

Do a quick comparison. See if it makes a difference.

Yours iDevice illiterate person,

JF

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Thanks @Brian_R170 but the reason I primarily use the mobile app is that the Desktop/Laptop .com site doesn’t allow attachments in their messaging tool (or at least didn’t use to).

Another thing I discovered this morning that shows the differences between the two: The guest who I was trying to help cancel her reservation for a full refund, couldn’t’ find a way to do so on the App (without penalty) but when she tried it on the Desktop she was able to do it.

Maybe the AmazonBNB Site will have better integration :wink:

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What I meant was to just look at the existing conversation on a desktop/laptop to see if it looks different, not to use it for the communication.

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@HH_AZ You can send guests an email using the coded email address Airbnb assigns to guests, and you can easily add attachments. I do this all the time to send my guests a map to my place. I send them an Airbnb message advising them that I am going to do this, telling them to check their email Inbox (as well as their Spam box if they don’t see in Inbox) and asking them to please confirm that they got it. Sometimes they get the email, but for some reason the attachment isn’t there. In that case, I ask for their actual email address and resend.

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Thanks; Yes I usually use that method to send a PDF file to guests who request an advance copy of my list of restaurants, activities, etc.

But it does mean opening email rather than the message feature of the App which sends a text alert. The latter is usually more accessible / immediate.

Since this wasn’t happening until about a month or two ago, Brian and I think that at some point AirBNB IT made a decision to “shrink” the size of the jpegs in order to save $$$ in the storage costs. Probably also the reason they never implemented messaging attachment capability on the .com platform

I understand the logic and appreciate their efforts to cut costs (especially prior to IPO) but, from a functionality perspective, I wish they would have opted to implement the jpeg compression when the emails are archived or at least after checkout date.

It’s certainly not a critical issue, especially right now, but I just happen to have a little time on my hands, and figured I’d ask the question to see if it was just me or a systematic issue. I’ll send a AirBNB IT a trouble ticket; they can’t possible have anything else to do. :thinking:

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