How to avoid sending clipped emails to Gmail users

Overview

Gmail sometimes "clips" emails that it considers too lengthy, meaning recipients have to click a link to see the entire email. This clip hides the unsubscribe link, which can lead to increased spam reports, and could hide important CTAs. Read on to learn more about Gmail clipping and how to avoid it!

In this guide

1. Send a Test Email To Your Gmail Account
2. Determine Your Email’s Size
3. Reduce the Size of Your Email

Gmail sets a variable limit on the email size depending on the email's content, the device the email is viewed on, and the app used to access the email. When this limit is crossed by a sender, Gmail users see “[Message Clipped] View entire message” and must click the hyperlink to access the rest of the email.

The clip can hide important content from your emails, such as calls to action and the unsubscribe link. Recipients may click spam on clipped emails to avoid the 2+ clicks it would take to unclip the email and click unsubscribe, making clipped emails dangerous for your overall revenue and hard earned sending reputation.

Gmail accounts for an estimated 27% of all emails received worldwide, so optimizing your emails to avoid clipping is important. Follow the steps outlined below to test and reduce the size of your emails to avoid Gmail clipping.

1

 Send a live email to your Gmail account

While Gmail does not publicize the exact logic used to determine whether an email gets clipped, ensuring emails are smaller than 102 KB has become an email industry best practice for avoiding Gmail message clipping.

Tracking links sent in live emails but not test emails contain more characters than regular links. Every link in your email is turned into a tracking link when sent as a live Campaign or Automation email. Send yourself a live email by creating a list with only your email address, then use that list as the Campaign audience for your "test" email.

View the email on desktop and mobile, as well as in standard inbox apps like Gmail and Apple Mail. If your email wasn’t clipped, you’re good to go! If it was clipped, move on to step two.

2

 Determine your email’s size

You can use a tool like bytesizematters to determine the size of your email:

1. Click the View entire message link in your clipped email to load the rest of your content
2. Right-click anywhere on the page and select View Page Source
3. Copy the code that appears in a new tab
4. Paste the code into bytesizematters

Look at the file size at the top right corner of the text box. If it is more than 102 KB, you will need to reduce the size of your email.

3

 Reduce the size of your email

The easiest way to reduce the size of your email is to cut content. When you cut content or rework your email to reduce its size, remember the email marketing best practice: an email’s content should be roughly 60% text and 40% images.

Generally, images account for the largest parts of an email. Try resizing or compressing the size of the images in your email and test different options to see what works best.

Troubleshooting

I've reduced my email size, but Contacts still reports that they're receiving clipped emails!

Sendlane users rarely experience persistent Gmail clipping due to Sendlane's MJML based email builder, which generally prevents Gmail clipping. If you can't determine why your emails are clipped right away, please contact your assigned Customer Success Manager for further assistance.

As you work to find the cause of the clipping, you may want to add a note for Gmail users to existing emails explaining that they'll need to click the "View entire message" link to view your entire email. Create a Segment with a condition for Email address > contains > Gmail, then use this Segment as the Audience for Campaigns containing the clipped message note.