First off by your own admission you CAN paste images into Thunderbird so your title is slightly misleading and totally incorrect

Thunderbird provided an ATTACH button for what you want to do.

You can also select several files from where ever you have them stored and drag and drop them on the address fields to attach them.

Copy and paste by definition is going to embed the item into the document or form that you have open.

Copy and paste is a one item per operation no matter what software you are using. You are complaining about standard Windows operations there. This has nothing to do with Thunderbird.

Hi Airmail, Yes, when I first started the question I did not think I was able to paste at all, because the context command for paste is disabled. I was exploring the process while writing up the text and discovered the other workflows and did not update the subject. Sorry about that.

I'm not sure why you think copy and paste is a one item per operation command. I routinely select multiple items and copy them and paste them to another location. I routinely copy multiple files from Windows Explorer and paste them into Outlook emails and they attach as attachments. I can also select multiple files and past them into Word and they each paste in turn into the document as embedded objects.

As I said previously, my problem with the Attach button is I have to navigate to where the objects are. In my typical workflows I generally already have a Windows Explorer window open to deal with the files I am about to email. Usually they are images I have just copied to the computer. So rather than have to re-navigate to them through the Attach command, I find it easier to just pop over to the already-open Windows Explorer, select the files I want, and copy-paste them into the email.

Drag and drop works, and thanks for pointing out that I can drag and drop multiple files into the "to" field. I did not know this functionality. My problem with that approach is I have to minimize and resize windows so that both screens can be at least partially seen during the operation. I tend to operate applications in full screen mode and cycle between them, so I have gotten used to cut-and-paste. However, this seems to be the best workaround for me.

Anyway, if you select multiple files from Windows Explorer and select copy, then return to the body of the email and right-mouse click, the paste command is disabled. The paste shortcut of Ctrl-V or Shift-Insert works, but will only paste one of the files, not all of them. It seems to me that if the context menu paste is disabled, then all should be, or if the shortcuts are active, than the context menu paste should be active. And it seems to me that you should be able to copy and paste multiple files.

Thanks for the information.

Click into the location in Explorer. That highlights it and changes it's form. Right click and select copy. Do the same in the attach dialog and select paste. to navigate the fast way.

The copy/paste into the attach dialog is a quick way to pick up a single file, and then subsequent files can be gotten because the default directory is then set.

I think drag and drop is the best solution, provided you are operating in a windowed mode.