Plain Text Email Version: Why HTML Alone Is Not Enough

Every well-built newsletter ships with a plain text email version tucked in next to the HTML. Most teams never look at it. And if that text part is empty or sloppy, both your readers and the spam filters notice. Building campaigns in a drag and drop editor? Then the platform almost certainly generates the text for you, and I’d bet nobody on the team has ever opened it. Below: what the text part is, who actually sees it, how to check it, and how to write one a human can read without wincing.

What is a plain text email version?

It’s an unformatted copy of your message, sent inside the same email as the HTML design. Under the hood this is a multipart/alternative email: one message, two bodies, and the receiving client shows whichever one it can handle. Order matters here. Plain text goes first, HTML goes last, because clients pick the last part they support. Most platforms build the text body from your HTML on their own. And that’s exactly where things go sideways.

Who actually reads the plain text fallback?

Anyone whose device or settings can’t (or won’t) render HTML. Which is a wider crowd than most marketers think:

• people on text-only or locked-down mail clients, including corporate setups that block HTML for security reasons,
• smartwatch users, some notification previews and reading modes that strip formatting,
• subscribers who’ve told their client to prefer text over HTML.

How many of them are there? Honestly, none of the sources used here give a reliable share. So don’t invent a number. Treat this audience as small but real, and move on.

HTML vs plain text email: why the text part matters for deliverability

Spam filters read both parts. An empty text body, or one that doesn’t match the HTML, makes a message look careless at best and shady at worst. Gmail’s email sender guidelines warn against using HTML and CSS to hide content, since hidden content can get messages marked as spam. Here’s the thing: a stripped-down text part shows what the email really says. Any mismatch jumps right out. The same guidelines also ask for links that are visible and easy to understand, and yes, that covers raw URLs in text just as much as buttons. If filtering is already giving you headaches, go through the common reasons emails hit spam while you’re fixing the text part.

How to check the text part your platform sends

Send yourself a test, open “show original” (or the raw source) and scroll down to the section marked text/plain. That’s it. Two minutes, tops. Then look for the usual suspects: long tracking URLs, image alt text dropped in weird places, “View in browser” sitting on the first line, merge tags that never rendered, lines chopped mid-sentence. After that, make sure the offer, the call to action and the unsubscribe link all made it through the conversion. Did they? If not, you’ll want to edit by hand. MailCraft offers built-in HTML and plaintext modes, so you can edit the text body directly instead of trusting auto-generation.

How to write a text version of a newsletter that people can read

Think of it as a condensed copy of the HTML, laid out for a screen with zero styling. No colors, no columns, no buttons. My usual order goes like this:

1. Put the main message in the first two lines.
2. Swap visual blocks for short headings in capitals or simple dividers.
3. Write out each call to action and give it one short URL on its own line.
4. Cut references to decorative images that mean nothing without the picture.
5. Keep paragraphs short, with a blank line between them.
6. Keep the footer with the sender address and the unsubscribe link.

Same message, fewer words. Never a different message. A lot of layout thinking carries over from the HTML anyway (hierarchy, scannability, one clear ask), and our articles on email design cover the bits worth keeping.

When the plain text version should be the main email

Use plain text as the primary format when the email should feel like it came from a person, not a brand. Notes signed by a named team member, onboarding messages, short account updates - all good fits. Plain text also reads fine on any screen, though for designed campaigns you’re better off designing mobile-responsive emails. The trade-off is pretty simple. You lose the visual design and some click tracking detail. You gain a message that looks like someone actually sat down and wrote it. Worth it? For the right emails, in my view, yes.

So before your next send, open the plain text email version and read it like a subscriber would: top to bottom, no design to hide behind. Then make it a fixed line on your pre-send checklist, right next to testing links and the subject line.

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