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The email builder is where you design and edit email templates. You add content blocks to a canvas, style them in a side panel, and preview the result before you send it in a campaign, a journey or a transactional email.

Open the builder

  • From Templates: open Templates in the sidebar (under Content), then open a template from My Templates, or click New Template to start from a blank one.
  • From the library: hover a library template and click Use template. This makes your own copy and opens it in the builder.
  • From a campaign or journey: open the template attached to an email step. The back arrow in the builder returns you to where you came from (for example Back to campaign).
You need a role that can edit content to use the builder. Anyone without that permission sees a read-only preview of the template instead of the editor.

Builder layout

View tabs

  • Write: the email as one scrolling page, for writing. Every heading, paragraph, button label and rich-text block is edited in place. Enter starts a new paragraph, Shift+Enter breaks a line, Backspace on an empty paragraph removes it, the arrow keys move between blocks, and typing / on an empty line opens a block picker (text, heading, rich text, image, button, divider, spacer, poll, countdown). Hover a block for its drag handle, Settings (opens the side panel for that block), Duplicate and Delete. Images, polls, countdowns and dividers are drawn as in the email and open their settings on click. Columns, containers, hero banners and hand-coded HTML blocks are shown read-only with Edit in Design. The brand theme, fonts and colours apply as you type; the footer stays where it is. Paste a document. Copy a draft from Google Docs, Notion, Word, Apple Notes or a web page and paste it onto the Write page. Headings become Heading blocks, paragraphs become Text blocks, formatted text (bold, italic, links), lists and quotes become rich-text blocks, a horizontal rule becomes a Divider, an image becomes an Image block, and a line that is only a link becomes a Button. Fonts and colours from the source are dropped so your theme applies. Images embedded in the document are uploaded to your file manager (not in the playground). Pasting into an empty paragraph replaces it; pasting into a paragraph with text inserts the blocks after it. One Undo reverts the whole paste. Plain text splits into paragraphs on blank lines.
  • Editor (Design): the drag-and-drop canvas, with the block palette on the left and the side panel on the right. Write and Design edit the same blocks; switch at any time.
  • Preview: the rendered email. Use Desktop and Mobile to change the width. On wide screens, Split View (Desktop + Mobile) shows both side by side.
  • Code: the email as HTML, MJML and JSON. See Code view and custom HTML.
  • AMP Preview: only shown when AMP is on. See AMP email.
The toolbar also has Preview as…, which previews the email for a real contact with sample data, and Send Test Email. Both are covered in Previews and test sends.

Focus mode

Focus Mode (⌘⇧F) hides the side panels so you can work on the canvas alone. Press Esc to leave it.

Rename a template

Click the template name in the toolbar (Click to rename), type the new name and press Enter. Press Esc to cancel.

Saving

The builder saves in three ways:
  1. Autosave. A few seconds after you stop editing, your changes are saved to the template. A dot next to the name shows the state: amber means unsaved changes, grey means saving.
  2. Save. The Save button (or ⌘S / Ctrl+S) saves right away. When nothing is pending, the button reads Saved.
  3. Browser draft. Your browser also keeps a local draft. If you close the tab before a save finishes, you see Unsaved changes found from … Restore? the next time you open the template. Click Restore to bring the draft back or Discard to throw it away. Drafts are kept for 24 hours.
If you try to leave the page with unsaved changes, your browser asks you to confirm.

Version history

Each save creates a version. Click Version History in the toolbar to see them.
1

Open Version History

Click the history icon in the toolbar.
2

Pick a version

Find the version you want and click Restore.
3

Confirm

Before it restores, the builder saves your current state as a new version, so you can undo the restore by restoring the latest version.
Up to 20 versions are kept for each template.

Approvals in team workspaces

In a workspace with more than one member, templates go through a review. The status is shown at the top of the builder: Draft, Pending Review, Approved or Rejected.
  • Reviewers are people whose role has the Content: approve permission: Owners and Administrators, and anyone on a custom role that allows it. They can Approve a draft or a pending template, or Reject it with an optional reason. Pending templates are listed on the Template Review page (Settings → Marketplace → Review).
  • Everyone else who can edit templates clicks Submit for Review, with an optional note for the reviewer. After a rejection they can Resubmit for Review.
Export, Share Link and Push to ESP only work for approved templates in a team workspace. Until then the Export menu shows Approved only. The check is made by InstantCampaign when the file is created, so it applies to every format (HTML, ZIP, MJML and AMP), to templates written in code, and to the Command Palette as well as the menu. The template’s author, and reviewers (who can approve it anyway), can export it before it’s approved with Export HTML or Export ZIP in the Command Palette. In a single-person workspace there’s no approval step. Templates saved by a reviewer are approved automatically.
If someone who isn’t a reviewer edits an approved template, it goes back to Draft and needs approval again. This also turns off its share link and removes it from the Marketplace if it was published. The builder says so next to the status before you edit, and shows a message when your save has sent the template back to Draft.

Notes and collaboration

When teammates open the same template, their avatars appear in the toolbar. Use the Notes tab to leave a note on a block: select the block, type in Note on ”…” and click Add. Resolved notes are hidden until you click Show resolved.

Command palette and shortcuts

Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) to open the Command Palette. From there you can insert any block, save, export, send a test, turn AMP on or off, or go to another part of the app.

Troubleshooting

Check your connection and click Save again. Your browser draft is kept for 24 hours, so reopening the template offers to restore the unsaved changes.
Your role doesn’t have permission to edit content. Ask a workspace owner or admin to change your role.

Blocks and layout

Every block type, columns, snippets and custom CSS.

Personalization

Merge tags, Liquid and sample data.