Download the HTML Version of an Email

  • Updated

Need a copy of your email's HTML outside of Act-On - to hand to a developer, archive, or use in another tool? You can download it straight from the email composer, whether the message is a draft or one you already sent.

Why this matters: Exporting the HTML gives you a portable copy of your design for use outside Act-On. Just know upfront what does and doesn't come with it - tracking, opt-out links, and images all behave differently once you take a message out of Act-On.

Quick Reference (Advanced Users)

  • New Composer: Design tab > Preview > download icon > Download HTML (or View HTML code > Download).
  • Legacy Composer: Design tab > Download Creatives (not available for templates).
  • Images are not included in the download - grab them from the image library or send yourself a test and save the rendered page instead.
  • Recipient-specific open/click tracking and opt-out links do not work in downloaded HTML.

This feature is accessed from the email composer:

  • For a draft message: Go to Outbound > Drafts. Find the email you want & from the menu on the right, choose Resume Edit.
  • For a sent message: Go to Outbound > Sent Messages. Find the email you want & from the menu on the right, choose New. You are working with an unsaved draft, but the draft content is identical to the sent message it is based on.

New Email Composer

  1. In the Design tab of the new Email Composer, at the top right click Preview.
  2. In Preview mode, at the top right click download > Download HTML:

In Preview mode, at the top right click download > Download HTML.

You can also click View HTML code (at the bottom), & in the View HTML code window, click Download.

  1. An HTML file downloads in your browser.

Legacy Emails - Download Creatives

For emails created in the legacy email composer, Download Creatives is available in the Design tab:

The Download Creatives option available in the Design tab of the legacy composer.

The Download Creatives feature is not available for email templates. When using a template, you do not send the template itself. Instead, your message is modified from the base template and is stored elsewhere (in Sent or Drafts).

Email Images

If the email design you are downloading contains images, these are not downloaded with this feature.

If you want the images, they are available via email composer, either in the image library or the image's URLs. Another option is to send yourself a test of the email, view the email in your browser, and then save that page. This saves all the email's images in a folder. (It also saves the HTML, which you don't want, as the links will have been changed). See your browser's help for more information on saving a web page.

Best Practices & FAQs

  • This feature is designed to export Act-On messages for external services. If you wish to duplicate an Act-On message within Act-On, such as moving a draft message to Email Templates, use the controls within Act-On itself. For example, if you go to Content > Email Templates > Create Template (top right), you can import a draft message from there.
  • Be careful deleting sent or draft messages. If a draft or sent message contains images uploaded via Upload A Pre-Designed Message (i.e., the images are not hosted on a third-party service or in the Act-On Image library), the image reference URLs will be removed if the draft or sent message is deleted.
  • Recipient-specific click and open tracking will not work. Act-On tracks opens by tracking the images being downloaded by the specific individual URL. The Download Creatives URLs cannot track these individually.
Opt-out links do not work with the Download Creatives feature. Act-On tracks opt-outs by specific individual URL. The Download Creatives URLs cannot track these individually.

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