send HTML emails in Mail from Safari not working in Yosemite

Question

Level 1

11 points

send HTML emails in Mail from Safari not working in Yosemite

Hey folks!

I'm a graphic designer and spend hours every day designing HTML emails for various clients. The code is built in Dreamweaver and the images are stored on a server. To send tests of these campaigns to myself and my clients I've relied on the following process for at least the last eight years:

1. Open the HTML file in Safari

2. Type ⌘I (File > Share > Email This Page)

3. Mail opens and a new email is created with the HTML file displayed in all it's graphical glory

4. Select recipient and hit Send

With Yosemite, this process is broken at step 3. Instead, Mail displays a blank email with no content. I've tried getting around this by moving the HTML file to a server, but Mail is overriding some of the HTML, namely the image dimensions specified in the both the <td> and <img> tags.

I've been searching for the past few months for a solution. Anyone else using this same work flow seeing this problem?

MacBook Pro, Yosemite 10.10.1, Safari 8.0, Mail 8.1

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 5, 2014 3:07 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 29, 2017 4:02 PM in response to tlrichman

I came across the same issue today - in Yosemite the 'command i' function will only a display a url link to your email.

1. In my case, I create/edit my html emails in Dreamweaver. (Tip: use one of the templates offered by 'MailChimp' - at least you know the structure and styling of your email is correct).
2. If you have ftp access to a web server, upload your finished email and used images to that server.
3. You will notice that at the top of every html email template from MailChimp it shows the line 'Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser' – make sure to include the correct url link to the file you just uploaded. Not all mail agents are displaying html emails properly. Outlook is notoriously refusing to display images automatically in emails (super annoying), so you need that fall-back.
3. Now, type the url to your html email in Safari – At this point you can check if your email looks OK and all images are loading properly.

4. If everything looks OK, press 'Command i', and yes, Apple Mail will open a new message and displays your html email properly, just like it used to in the pre-Yosemite days.

Don't ask me why but it looks like it wants to make sure that all assets are loading properly. Before, you could do a 'Live Preview' in Dreamweaver, display your email in Safari and create an email by hitting 'command i' only to find out (if you hadn't uploaded you images to an external public accessible server) that none of your images where loading in your email that you had send out.

Hope this answers your question.

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Answer 2

aauv

Level 1

4 points

Dec 27, 2014 11:44 AM in response to tlrichman

Seems to be a bug in Safari under Yosemite. Occurs only with HTML pages which are stored locally on the Mac and then opened with Safari.

Two options for a work around:

(1)

When Apple Mail shows a blank page, choose PDF instead of WEB PAGE in the mail header.

Thereafter, the contents will appear as a PDF attachment.

(2)

Publish the HTML page. Surf with Safari to the published page. Use the command "File : Send : Email this page".

Now it should work.

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Answer 3

tlrichman Author

Level 1

11 points

Dec 31, 2014 7:59 AM in response to aauv

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, Mail breaks some of the code from an externally hosted HTML file, namely the image dimensions in the <td> and <img> tags. HTML is inherently a tricky medium with a myriad of constraints. Mail seems to be overriding the code and acting like it's a regular HTML page built for modern browsers, not for displaying in email clients.

But I have found a work-around. It's not great, but will do the trick. Place the HTML file in the same folder as the Mail stationery template and rename it your file.mailstationery. I can then select it from Mail as a custom stationery option. That folder is located here: User / Library / Containers / com.apple.mail / Data / Library / Application Support / Mail / Stationery / Apple / Contents / Resources / Custom / Contents / Resources

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Answer 4

Mar 24, 2015 5:52 AM in response to tlrichman

I found this very simple solution on another web site:

1. Open your html in a Safari page

2. select ALL, then COPY

3. Open a new email message.

4. PASTE into the email message area

5. SEND your email

It worked perfectly for me.

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Answer 5

May 7, 2015 4:59 PM in response to tlrichman

I found a solution:

1. Save your HTML page as .webarchive

2. Open yoursite.webarchive

3. Type ⌘I (File > Share > Email This Page)

4. Send your email

Regards!

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Answer 6

May 26, 2015 9:08 AM in response to Alfred Davila

Alan Stone's method worked partially, but it did not include an overall background color. Alfred Davila's method — first saving the webpage as a webarchive — preserved the background.

Thanks!

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Answer 7

zampino

Level 1

4 points

Aug 20, 2015 7:21 AM in response to Chris Vonrosenvinge

This has been an ongoing problem since December and Apple has not fixed it yet? Very disappointing, it's a feature in one of the primary Safari menus. Thanks for the help from those who found workarounds. Has anyone actually reported this as a bug?

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