Will iOS Outlook 'Read More' clipping impact email deliverability?

Summary

Email clipping in iOS Outlook, similar to Gmail's, primarily affects user experience. While direct deliverability isn't immediately impacted if the email reaches the inbox, design flaws causing clipping can indirectly harm it. This is because clipped content can lead to reduced engagement (fewer opens and clicks), negatively affecting sender reputation over time. Several strategies mitigate this risk: optimizing HTML and CSS, reducing image sizes, using more text than images, and hosting images externally. Understanding email client-specific size limits and CSS support is also crucial, as is testing across various clients. Ensuring the email is delivered initially is key, but long-term deliverability hinges on user engagement, which is influenced by email design and avoiding clipping.

Key findings

  • Indirect Deliverability Impact: Clipping itself doesn't directly block delivery, but lowers engagement.
  • Reduced Engagement Harms Reputation: Lower open/click rates due to clipping can damage sender reputation.
  • Email Size Matters: Outlook has message size limits; exceeding them leads to truncation or non-delivery.
  • CSS Support Is Inconsistent: Email client CSS support varies greatly, necessitating thorough testing.

Key considerations

  • Optimize Email Design: Minimize HTML, CSS, and image sizes to avoid clipping.
  • Prioritize Important Content: Ensure key information and calls-to-action appear before clipping.
  • Balance Text and Images: Use a greater proportion of text than images in your designs.
  • Use External Image Hosting: Host images externally to reduce email size.
  • Test Across Clients: Thoroughly test emails on different devices and email clients.
  • Monitor Engagement Metrics: Track open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics to identify clipping-related issues.
  • Employ CSS Fallbacks: In order to have the best rendering for each email provider you will need to ensure there are CSS fallbacks in place.

What email marketers say
7Marketer opinions

Email clipping in iOS Outlook, similar to Gmail's clipping, primarily impacts user experience. While clipping itself may not directly harm deliverability, it can lead to reduced engagement (fewer opens and clicks) if important content or calls-to-action are hidden. This lower engagement can negatively affect sender reputation over time, indirectly impacting deliverability. Therefore, optimizing email design, code, and content to avoid clipping is recommended to maintain a positive user experience and protect sender reputation.

Key opinions

  • Indirect Impact: Clipping doesn't directly affect deliverability, but reduced engagement can.
  • User Experience: Clipping negatively affects user experience by hiding content.
  • Sender Reputation: Reduced engagement due to clipping can harm sender reputation over time.
  • Similar to Gmail: The 'Read More' in iOS Outlook is comparable to Gmail's email clipping.

Key considerations

  • Optimize Code: Minimize HTML, CSS, and image sizes to reduce email size.
  • Content Placement: Ensure important information and CTAs are visible before clipping occurs.
  • Text vs. Images: Use more text than images in email design.
  • External Hosting: Host images externally instead of embedding them directly in the email.
  • Regular Testing: Check email rendering in different email clients to prevent unexpected results.
Marketer view

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that the 'Read More' on iOS Outlook is similar to Gmail's clipping and is usually seen on lengthy newsletters, but not usually on shorter messages. He provides a link to a GitHub issue related to email bugs.

September 2024 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from Litmus shares that email clipping can impact deliverability indirectly. While clipping itself does not directly affect deliverability, if important calls to action or information are clipped, it can reduce engagement, potentially affecting sender reputation over time.

June 2021 - Litmus
Marketer view

Email marketer from HubSpot shares that optimizing HTML code for emails can reduce the overall size of the email, making it less likely to be clipped. Best practices include minifying CSS and HTML, using inline styles, and avoiding excessive use of tables.

August 2021 - HubSpot
Marketer view

Email marketer from GMass shares that to avoid clipping issues, try using more text than images, optimize your code by removing unnecessary code and comments, and host images externally rather than embedding them in the email.

April 2023 - GMass
Marketer view

Email marketer from EmailOctopus Blog shares that email clipping occurs when email clients like Gmail or Outlook truncate emails exceeding a certain size limit, potentially impacting user experience but not directly affecting deliverability. However, excessive clipping may indirectly impact engagement metrics, which could influence sender reputation.

March 2021 - EmailOctopus Blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that email clipping might not directly impact deliverability, but clipped emails lead to a bad user experience, which may result in lower engagement rates. Lower engagement can negatively influence your sender reputation over time, thereby affecting deliverability.

November 2022 - Mailjet
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit says that email clipping itself will not directly impact deliverability, the reduced engagement from users seeing clipped emails may negatively impact sender reputation over time. Therefore it's recommended to avoid email clipping by optimizing the design of the email.

May 2023 - Reddit

What the experts say
2Expert opinions

While initial delivery to the inbox and a user opening the email are positive signals, design choices leading to clipping can indirectly affect deliverability by decreasing engagement. Emails being displayed means they are delivered, minimizing immediate deliverability concerns unless users mark the email as spam. However, poor design choices resulting in 'Read More' clipping can lead to lower open and click rates, ultimately impacting sender reputation and future deliverability.

Key opinions

  • Initial Delivery Positive: Email being displayed means it's delivered to the inbox and opened.
  • Engagement Matters: Decreased engagement from clipping can negatively impact deliverability.
  • Design's Indirect Impact: Design choices leading to clipping indirectly affect deliverability.

Key considerations

  • Minimize Clipping: Optimize email design to reduce the likelihood of 'Read More' clipping.
  • Monitor Engagement: Track open and click rates to assess the impact of design choices.
  • Avoid Spam Triggers: Ensure emails don't trigger spam filters to maintain deliverability.
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that design choices in emails, leading to things like email clipping or poor rendering, can indirectly affect deliverability if they lead to decreased engagement (fewer opens, clicks, etc.).

July 2024 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if the mail is being displayed, it's been delivered to the inbox and the user has opened it. It's unlikely that anything other than “report as spam” will affect future delivery of similar emails.

March 2025 - Email Geeks

What the documentation says
4Technical articles

Email client support for CSS varies widely. Microsoft Outlook enforces message size limits, and exceeding them can result in truncated or undelivered messages. Campaign Monitor provides summaries of those file size limits. Optimizing email code, using CSS efficiently, and reducing image sizes can prevent email clipping in clients like Outlook and Gmail. Email clients support CSS differently, requiring thorough testing and fallbacks.

Key findings

  • Message Size Limits: Outlook enforces message size limits that can lead to truncation.
  • Optimization Prevents Clipping: Optimizing email code, CSS, and images helps avoid clipping.
  • CSS Support Varies: Email client support for CSS differs greatly, requiring testing and fallbacks.

Key considerations

  • Reduce Email Size: Minimize email size to stay within Outlook's limits.
  • Optimize Code: Streamline HTML and CSS for efficient rendering.
  • Test Across Clients: Thoroughly test emails in different clients to ensure consistent display.
  • Implement Fallbacks: Implement appropriate CSS fallbacks in order to have the best rendering on each platform.
Technical article

Documentation from Stack Overflow provides various tips to prevent email clipping, such as optimizing code, using CSS efficiently, and reducing image sizes. Implementing these tips can help avoid clipping in email clients like Outlook and Gmail.

April 2022 - Stack Overflow
Technical article

Documentation from MDN Web Docs answers question by explaining that Email client support for CSS varies wildly. So you'll need to test on your target clients and provide appropriate fallbacks.

March 2024 - MDN Web Docs
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that Outlook has message size limits, and exceeding these limits can lead to messages being truncated or not delivered. While not specifically about 'Read More' clipping, it highlights the importance of keeping email size in check.

May 2021 - Microsoft Support
Technical article

Documentation from Campaign Monitor answers question by providing a summary of the file size limits on major email providers.

January 2022 - Campaign Monitor