Does Blender store textures inside the .blend file?

[Tshask]

So. when I was learning Blender 2.79 I was under the impression that textures, bump maps etc. are stored outside as images.

But now I have downloaded a complex scene which was just one .blend file, over 1GB in size, with all textures and materials loaded.

So, does it mean anything I import to my Blender project will be stored inside the .blend file?

[still__alive]

No, not necessarily. There is an option to pack all the files into the .blend. In 2.8 it is under File > External Data > pack all into .blend. And an option to automatically do that.

You don't have to use that if you are just working on one PC, Blender will still know where the files are even if you don't pack them into the file. Your file size will be smaller if you don't pack them into the .blend.

If you are working with the files across multiple PCs, using the cloud, sharing your file with other people, or you move the textures to another location on your PC, and the files are not packed into your .blend, then Blender won't be able to load the external files because it won't know where they are. Those would be cases where you'd want to pack the files into the .blend.