ContactMonkey Emails forwarded through Outlook, Gmail, or other email clients often lose their original formatting. This happens because email clients modify HTML code when processing forwarded messages, which can break your carefully designed layouts.
What Causes Forwarding Issues
When someone forwards an email, their email client rewrites the message's HTML code. Different email clients handle this process differently, but common changes include:
- Stripping out style elements and custom formatting
- Wrapping the entire email in blockquote tags
- Adding or removing CSS classes
- Converting images to inline attachments
- Modifying spacing and margins
These changes happen automatically and cannot be prevented during the email-building process.
Common Forwarding Problems
You may notice these issues when recipients forward your emails:
- Broken links - URLs become unclickable or redirect incorrectly
- Lost formatting - Text loses bold, italic, colors, or alignment
- White lines - Horizontal gaps appear between content sections
- Margin changes - Spacing shifts, making the email look cramped or stretched
- Visible hidden content - Desktop or mobile-specific sections display on the wrong devices
Note: Your tracking data will still record these forwards. Learn more about how forwarding affects your campaign tracking.
What You Can Do
Since you cannot prevent email clients from modifying forwarded messages, focus on these strategies:
Build simpler email designs - Use single-column layouts and basic formatting that survives code modifications. See our guide here.
Discourage forwarding - Include a "Share this email" button that links to a web version instead. This ensures all readers see the correct formatting.
Test forwarding behavior - Send test emails and forward them through different email clients to identify which elements break most often.
Use web-hosted content - For critical information, link to web pages instead of embedding everything in the email. Web content maintains formatting regardless of how it's shared.