For marketers
Client previews
The preview in Better Email is a browser rendering of your email. It is accurate for structure and content, but it can't tell you what classic Outlook does to your padding or how Gmail lays out a two-column module. Client Previews answers that. It sends the email to a rendering service, which opens it in real email clients and devices and returns a screenshot from each one.
Where to find it
Client previews work in two places:
- The Campaign Workspace. Open the Review tab and choose Client Previews next to Preview, Rendered and Code. The colour scheme menu on the Overview, Feedback and Review tabs also links to it.
- The Design System preview. In the preview window of the Design System Editor, choose Client Previews next to Preview and Rendered.
The two serve different stages. In a Campaign you check the email a marketer is about to send. In the Design System preview you check modules and settings while you build them, before any Campaign uses them.
How it works
- Choose Generate Previews.
- Better Email renders the email as it currently stands and sends that HTML to the rendering service.
- Each client your organization uses gets its own card, with the client's name and the system it runs on, for example Windows 11 or Windows 10 · Chrome. The card shows Preview queued..., then Generating preview..., then the screenshot.
- Click a card to open the screenshot full size.
With the 8 clients in the default set, the screenshots arrive in about 30 seconds.
What gets rendered depends on where you are:
- In a Campaign, Client Previews renders the latest Revision, with any variant pins you set in Preview. Clients that show the email inside an inbox, such as Gmail on the web, show the Campaign's subject line. If you are viewing an older Revision, the option is hidden. Results are shared by everyone on the Campaign, so generating from an old Revision would replace the current screenshots for the whole team.
- In the Design System preview, it renders exactly what the preview window shows: the modules, settings values and Destination you have selected. Results are shared by everyone working on that Design System.
You can stop a run with Stop generating. A client that hasn't returned a screenshot after ten minutes shows Latest preview failed. Generate again to retry it.
When nothing has changed
If the last run returned a screenshot from every client, and nothing in the email, its subject line or the list of clients has changed since, Refresh Previews keeps the screenshots you have. Better Email says they are up to date instead of taking new ones, and nothing counts toward the monthly allowance.
To take new screenshots anyway, choose Take new screenshots in that notice. Use it when a screenshot caught a problem outside the email that has since been fixed, such as an image that was broken on its server. The new run counts toward the allowance as usual. The notice goes away after about 15 seconds.
Previous runs
Each time you choose Refresh Previews after a change, Better Email keeps the earlier screenshots. The full-size view goes back at least 10 runs per Campaign and per Design System, so you can compare a fix with the version before it.
In the full-size view:
- ← and → move between clients.
- ↑ and ↓ move between runs, newest first. Under the client's name you see which version you are on, for example Version 2 of 5.
When you move to another client, you stay on the same run, so you can step through every client for one version of the email.
Screenshots taken before the client list changed in November 2026 no longer appear. Generate new previews to start a fresh history.
Choose the clients
Admins choose which email clients a run takes screenshots in. The choice applies to the whole organization, in Campaigns and in the Design System preview.
- Go to Settings → Client previews.
- Search for a client, or scroll through Desktop apps, Webmail and Phones and tablets. Under each client's name is the system it runs on. Dark mode versions say Dark Mode there.
- Tick up to 30 clients. Next to the search box you see how many are ticked, for example 14 of 30 selected.
- Choose Save changes.
The dark mode clients are real dark mode screenshots, so they show what each client does with your dark styles or its own recolouring. For a quick check while you edit, use the dark mode preview instead. It is instant and needs no rendering run.
Better Email updates the list every day. When a client is retired, it drops out of your organization's runs. If every client you picked is retired, runs go back to the default set.
Supported clients
There are about 110 clients to choose from. Settings → Client previews always shows the current list.
Desktop apps
| Client | Runs on | Dark mode |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Mail 16 | macOS 13 | Yes |
| Outlook 2016, and a 120 dpi version for high-resolution screens | Windows 10 | No |
| Outlook 2019, and a 120 dpi version | Windows 10 | No |
| Outlook 2021 | Windows 11 | Yes |
| Outlook 2024 | Windows 11 | Yes |
| The new Outlook for Windows | Windows 11 | Yes |
| Outlook Microsoft 365 | Windows 11 and macOS 13 | Yes |
| Outlook Office 365 | Windows 10 | Yes |
Webmail
Each one runs in Chrome, Edge and Firefox on Windows 10.
| Client | Dark mode |
|---|---|
| AOL.com | Yes |
| Free.fr | Yes |
| Gmail.com | Yes |
| GMX | No |
| Libero | No |
| Microsoft365.com | Yes |
| Outlook.com | Yes |
| T-Online | No |
| Web.de | No |
| Yahoo.com | Yes |
Phones
| Client | Runs on | Dark mode |
|---|---|---|
| Mail app on iPhone 14, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max | iOS 16 | Yes |
| Mail app on iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max | iOS 17 | Yes |
| Mail app on iPhone 16, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max | iOS 18 | Yes |
| Mail app on iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max | iOS 26 | Yes |
| Mail app on iPhone 18 Pro | iOS 27 | Yes |
| Gmail app on iPhone 16 | iOS 26 | Yes |
| Outlook app on iPhone 13 | iOS 15 | Yes |
| Gmail app on Pixel 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 | Android 12 to 16 | Yes |
The default set
Until an admin saves a choice, your organization uses a default set of 8 clients. It covers the clients with the most opens and the ones that render most differently:
- Outlook 2024 on Windows 11
- Apple Mail on macOS
- Gmail and Outlook.com in Chrome
- The Gmail app on a Pixel 10, light and dark
- The Mail app on iPhone 17 with iOS 26
- The Outlook app on iPhone
The settings page shows Default set next to the count while your organization uses it. To go back to it after picking your own clients, choose Use the default set, then Save changes. As long as your organization uses the default set, it gets any changes Better Email makes to it.
Monthly allowance
Each client in a run counts as one preview, so a run with the default set uses 8. Each organization has a monthly allowance of previews, counted per calendar month in UTC. The count resets on the 1st.
Admins see the month so far under This month on Settings → Client previews, as previews used out of the allowance. An organization with no limit sees only how many previews it has used.
If a run needs more previews than your organization has left, Better Email doesn't start it and tells you how many are left. An admin can pick fewer clients, or you can wait for the 1st.
A run that can't start doesn't count. Neither does a client the rendering service can't take, which shows Latest preview failed straight away.
When to use it
Each run counts toward your organization's previews for the month, so it isn't a substitute for the live preview while you edit. Run it when:
- a Campaign is ready for final review, especially for an important send
- you change a module's layout, tables or spacing in a Design System
- you add or change dark mode styles
- a recipient reports that an email looks broken in a specific client