Email Size & Gmail Clipping

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Overview

What is the ideal size for your email? This is a common question among email marketers. Opinions vary widely. Realistically, there is no perfect email size. What matters most depends on your audience. More specifically, it depends on which email client they use most. For example, a business newsletter's audience may mainly use Outlook. A consumer promotion's audience may mainly use Gmail or Apple Mail.

One common reason to watch your email size is Gmail clipping. Gmail clips any HTML file larger than 102 KB. Some Email Sending Platforms (ESPs) also set their own HTML size limits. A large HTML file can sometimes impact deliverability too.

The size of images in an email does not add to the email's HTML size. Image file size does contribute to your data traffic. See Hosted image delivery in RGE Studio for full details. Large image files can also slow loading times, especially on slower connections or mobile devices.

What Is Gmail Clipping?

Gmail clips designs for HTML files over 102 KB. This happens regardless of the sending method. Be mindful of your exported design's size. Our HTML parser reduces file size as much as possible. Some design elements can still increase the HTML footprint.

Gmail clipping always adds a message at the bottom of your design. Sometimes, that's the only effect. In other cases, it also hides content behind the View entire message link. It can even cause your HTML to break and render as plain text.

How can I avoid Gmail clipping?

Here are design elements that commonly contribute to Gmail clipping. We've also included common causes and best practices to help you avoid it:

• Heavily formatted text: Start with plain text. Apply formatting once all text is in place.
• Using hide on desktop or mobile: Create a single design that works for every device when possible. Hiding content adds conditional statements. This often duplicates content, which can increase your HTML file size. Mobile styles let you optimize content without duplicating it.
• Adding a new row for each content block: Stack content blocks inside the same row when possible.
• Frequent dividers: Use padding instead of dividers to reduce your HTML footprint.

This list covers common causes, not every possible one.

Email Height

A long email can cause issues in some email clients. This can happen even if the HTML weight is under 102 KB. Watch for at least two height limitations. Both apply to different Outlook clients:

1. Desktop Outlook on Windows: An image taller than 1728px may get cropped or resized. This height limit applies to the original image file, not the resized version in your design. Resize images before you upload them to the file manager. You can also slice tall images horizontally and stack them without padding.
2. Mobile Outlook on iOS: Outlook on iOS clips emails taller than 5000px, similar to Gmail. This clipping depends only on your content's height. HTML weight does not play a role.