We run into this issue with Gmail and Outlook pretty consistently.
Here are solutions and work arounds to this decade old problem that comes back to haunt us, however, let it be known – the “us” is part of the problem.
Constant Contact and most email providers have a 102kb limit of characters that accumulates based on the length of the email you wrote – the html code of the email. While images are technically referenced in html code, the direct size of the image doesn’t play a direct part in the “size” of the email, but we will circle back to images in a second!
Gmail begins clipping content for emails over 102KB in size, or when the amount of content (particularly images) or sheer length exceeds its built-in thresholds. This differs between the mobile app and browser versions. Interesting fact thought… some emails that get rearranged for mobile view can end up surpassing its mobile app length threshold, but will wholly show on the desktop. This can also happen in the inverse as well.
Clipped content in Gmail
When your email message exceeds 102KB in size or is too content-heavy, Gmail clips it and makes the reader click “View entire message” to read the rest of your email.
To decrease the chance that part of your email appears hidden:
- Be concise – Write more concise and targeted campaigns that focus on a few key points or a specific call-to-action. Shorter emails not only avoid clipping, but improve open rates too.
- Use links – Use a “Read More” action block to point to a website where your reader can get in-depth information or create your own “Read More” text link.
- Close gaps – Remove unnecessary spaces or line breaks that add too much length to your email.
- Paste plain text – When you copy content from a document or webpage, it can include extra code for formatting and styles that increases the size of your email when you paste it into your template. Use Ctrl+Shift+V (for PC) or Options+Shift+Command+V (for Mac) to paste text without styles and strip out the extra code.
In regards to using high resolution images in your email, we highly recommend that you strike a balance between optimizing them to the size image your are inserting (save a higher resolution transparent PNG for the square the header you’re inserting it) OR just downgrade the size and resolution of the image in Photoshop or Photo editor or other image programs you may be using.
