Today, I’ll show you how to create “HTML emails” and send them in Gmail. The benefit of doing so is that you can design email campaigns and then edit and send them directly inside Gmail, either as a campaign or just as part of regular email correspondence.

And once you’ve done that, you can save your HTML email as a template to use again.

Why importing HTML into Gmail “doesn’t work”

If you take HTML code and paste it “raw” into the Gmail compose window, it won’t render anything else — it will just appear as HTML code. So, HTML on its own won’t help you format the shape or appearance of your emails.

So, I’ll show you how to work around that.

How to send HTML email with Gmail

There are three ways you can load the Gmail Compose window with your custom HTML.

1. Copy/paste the rendered HTML into the Gmail Compose window.
2. Paste your HTML code into the Gmail Compose window using Chrome’s Developer Tools
3. Use a Chrome extension to add an HTML editor to the Gmail Compose box

My favorite technique is #2 because it gives me the most control and doesn’t require an extension. Every extension you add to Gmail crowds the interface just a tad more.

Option 1: Copy/paste rendered HTML into Gmail Compose Window

On its own, the Gmail Compose window doesn’t let you edit the HTML “behind” the message. This is in contrast to an email service provider like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, in which you can edit the raw HTML. So, the technique below is a way to work around that Gmail limitation.

Once you have your HTML written, the process is basically just a matter of copy and paste. You create your page in HTML, load it into a browser, copy the contents of the browser, and then paste it into Gmail’s compose window. By “rendered” HTML, I mean what the HTML looks like in the browser, with colors, fonts, and images in place.

Let’s run through a quick example of that.

Creating and sending your HTML email in Gmail

Step 1: Write your HTML.

For this example, I’m using some boilerplate HTML adapted for our purposes. HTML can be either written directly or, possibly, composed with an HTML authoring tool. Gmail is a little picky with what it will allow as HTML in its emails, so here are a few important guidelines:
– You can’t use external style sheets, though you can use inline CSS (e.g., <td style=bgcolor=”white” align=”center”>) as well as embedded CSS in the head. For more details about exactly what you can and should use in Gmail, see this page. Note: Gmail changed their support for CSS in 2016, so older posts online may claim they don’t support things they actually do. The post I linked to is up to date with that change.
– Some HTML tags may not be supported. This list (which may not be perfectly current) shows HTML tags that are supported and some that are not.
– Gmail does not support web fonts. So, either use the standard fonts they provide or, if you want another font for something like a logo, make an image of that text. Then, in the HTML, link to that image hosted online, which is what I have done for the “Binkman’s Books” logo in my sample email below.
– All images have to be hosted online somewhere — they can’t be included in the email. You can host images on Imgur, Amazon Web Services, Google Docs (if you can get a direct link to the image), or any other place intended for hosting images.
– Using tables to organize the display of contents is the recommended way to go for HTML emails. However, even using tables, there are still issues to watch out for.
– Google Docs for composing could be problematic. Although there are tutorials out there about using Google Docs to create your HTML email without coding, when I tried it, I found that what was displayed on Google Docs was not exactly what appeared in the email (e.g., something that was centered in Google Docs was left-aligned in the email).
– Keep it simple. Because what Gmail will support is somewhat unpredictable, it’s best to keep things fairly simple in terms of the HTML. (That’s probably a good idea from the point of view of recipients, too. No one needs an overly complex email.) Keeping things simple also helps your recipients’ email clients render things as you intend them, especially when it comes to responsive email design.
– Create a template. Once you have your HTML file formatted, save it as a template outside of Gmail. Then in the future, you can use that template to set up new emails just by replacing a few words without having to recreate the HTML code to configure your layout, logo placement, and so on.
– Remember, Gmail is a work-in-progress. Gmail keeps changing, so blog posts or online answers from a few years ago are already out of date. If you’re researching how to do anything with HTML and Gmail, try to find content that is as recently written as possible.

Step 2: Display the rendered HTML page in a browser.

I used Chrome and just opened (Ctrl-O) the .html file that was on my computer.

Step 3: Open a Gmail Compose window and paste it into the main text area.

The HTML email should appear in the compose window. Double-check (including scrolling down to the bottom) that everything looks appropriate before you send the email.

Step 4: Send your mail merge with GMass. As usual, just hit the red GMass button.

That’s it! The nice thing about this approach is when you save the HTML file as a template, your future HTML emails will look consistent and build a “brand look” in your emails. It also saves you a huge amount of time crafting new HTML emails, and you don’t have to create any external CSS files.

Of course, this technique can be combined with any of the other ways to use GMass, such as from a Google Docs spreadsheet or even as part of an automated email sequence.

 

Option 2: Paste the HTML code into Gmail using Chrome’s Developer Tools

This technique is a Gmail and Chrome hack. You right-click in the Gmail Compose window, find the relevant HTML portion of the box’s element, and then paste in your HTML code.

First, right-click anywhere in the Compose box and choose Inspect.

Chrome will then split itself and open up a pane showing the HTML of the Compose box, and one part will be highlighted.

 

Find the “div” marked “contenteditable=true”, and then right-click and choose Edit as HTML.

The part inside the “div” tag is the part you should replace with your custom HTML code.

Here I have my custom HTML code in the Sublime text editor:

But here it is for you as well, in case you want to try copying/pasting this yourself:

<h1>This is my headline</h1>

<p>This is my first paragraph.</p>

<p style="font-weight: bold;">Here is some bold text.</p>

<p>Here is an image of a sun:</p>
<br>
<img src="https://image.shutterstock.com/image-vector/sad-sun-exhausted-heat-vector-260nw-200226281.jpg">

Finally, here is my code pasted in:

and as soon as I click away, the Compose window is filled with the rendered version of the HTML.

Option 3: Use a Chrome extension to Send HTML Email in Gmail

There are several Chrome extensions that add a slick HTML editor to the Gmail Compose window so that you can edit the HTML behind the scenes in an easy-to-use manner. In Option 2, you are also editing the HTML behind the scenes — but doing so directly by hacking the code behind the HTML page. Chrome extensions let you do the same thing but make the entire HTML code process easier.

Chrome extension 1: Free HTML Editor for Gmail by cloudHQ

This is the most robust of the HTML editors because it includes WYSIWIG design tools as well. The one annoyance that comes with this extension is it requires you to create an account with them. They don’t require OAuth access to your Gmail account, but they do require Google Sign-in privileges. That doesn’t inherently put your account data at risk, but it’s annoying because the functionality should be able to be accomplished all on the client-side.

Click the extension’s icon at the bottom of the Compose window.

Their email design tool looks like this:

The design tool takes over the Compose window until you click “Close Editor.”

You can also watch their video to see their extension in action.

Chrome extension 2: GMass

My own Chrome extension includes an “HTML” function so you can view and set the HTML into the Compose window.

Launch the Settings box and click “HTML.”

Paste in your HTML.

Hit Okay, and watch the magic happen.

Note that to use just the HTML editor functionality of GMass, you don’t need to subscribe to a paid plan.

Chrome extension 3: HTML Inserter for Gmail

This is a nifty extension that’s one of my favorites because it doesn’t require any OAuth access to my Gmail account. It works entirely on the client side without sending any information back to a server.

You can use it in 3 easy steps:

1. Click the HTML icon.
   
2. Paste your HTML.
   
3. Click the Insert HTML button and watch your formatted message appear.
   

So, as you can see, you can create basic templates for bulk emails without learning to use a developer tool or hiring an email template designer. You don’t even need to know how to code from scratch if you can copy and paste the HTML version of an existing email.

Best of luck creating your next email template!