Is there no way to embed a Google Map into an HTML email?

yes there is a way using php and javascript you can pass static map url and pass it through form submission and use in email

Get current location/ Coordinates through javascript

var latlon = position.coords.latitude + "," + position.coords.longitude; var img_url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center="+latlon+"&zoom=17&size=500x250&sensor=false&key=API_KEY&maptype=roadmap&markers=icon:http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/ms/icons/red-dot.png|"+latlon;

here pass the value to input field

document.getElementById("map_image").value = img_url;

Inside form take input with id=map_image and type hidden than submit form and handle post request on next page

than for handling after submission of form

$map_image_url = $_POST['map_image'];

than you can use this as img in email template

$EMAILTEMPLATE .= '<img src="'.$map_image_url.'"/>';

Well your own research shows that most mail clients don't do iFrames, so what do you think can be done?

This is on purpose by the way. iFrames and JavaScript are security risks that mail services don't want to deal with.

Your best bet is to get a static image of the map and embed it as an image in an HTML email. Put a hyperlink on it to the "full" map on Google Maps.

To do this manually in Gmail:

1. Go to http://staticmapmaker.com/google/ or similar
2. Enter the location
3. Copy the map image to your clipboard and paste it into an email
4. Copy the href of the anchor in the section "Map with link to Google Maps"
5. Select the whole image (put the cursor to the right of the image, and press shift + left arrow
6. Press ctrl+k to hyperlink the image
7. Paste the url from step 4 into the Web Address field

You can create a static image map and send it by email, doing it in Perl: https://metacpan.org/pod/Geo::Google::StaticMaps::V2

or simply directly by Google: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/static-maps/

It should be something like this in HTML part of the e-mail:

<img src="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?size=800x600&maptype=hybrid&scale=2&format=png8&sensor=false&path=geodesic%3Atrue%7C-6.9325%2C+37.3916666666667%7C-6.9325%2C+37.3933333333333%7C-6.93388888888889%2C+37.3933333333333%7C-6.93388888888889%2C+37.3916666666667%7C-6.9325%2C+37.3916666666667&zoom=10" width="800" height="600"/>

I have just tried it out and it works like a charm.

Sample code:

#!/usr/bin/perl 
use strict;
use warnings;
use feature ':5.10';
use utf8;
use Geo::Converter::dms2dd qw { dms2dd };
use Geo::Google::StaticMaps::V2;
my $map = Geo::Google::StaticMaps::V2->new(
width    => 800,
height   => 600,
sensor   => 0,
scale    => 2,
zoom     => 16,
format   => "png8",
type     => "hybrid"
);

binmode(STDOUT, ":encoding(UTF-8)");
binmode(STDIN, ":encoding(UTF-8)");
$| = 1;

my %c;

$c{1} = [ '-6 55 57.00', '37 23 30.00' ];
$c{2} = [ '-6 55 57.00', '37 23 36.00' ];
$c{3} = [ '-6 56 02.00', '37 23 36.00' ];
$c{4} = [ '-6 56 02.00', '37 23 30.00' ];
$c{5} = [ '-6 55 57.00', '37 23 30.00' ];

my @location;

foreach my $key (sort keys %c) {
$c{$key}[0]  = dms2dd ({value => $c{$key}[0], is_lat => 1});
$c{$key}[1]  = dms2dd ({value => $c{$key}[1], is_lon => 1});
push(@location, "$c{$key}[0], $c{$key}[1]");
}


my $path = $map->path(locations=>[ @location ], geodesic=>1);
print $map->url;
$map->image;
$map->save("/home/data1/protected/map.png");