Responsive Emails, Written in Markdown

Write markdown. Ship emails. No HTMHELL. emailmd turns it into HTML that renders everywhere, Outlook included.

Get started
$npm install emailmd
A coffee newsletter rendered by emailmd, with a black masthead, a bold headline, and a full-width photograph

Markdown goes in. Email-safe HTML comes out.

The same syntax you already use in README files and pull requests. No nested tables, no inline style soup, no client-specific hacks.

confirm-email.md
---
preheader: "Confirm your email address"
theme: dark
---

::: header
![Logo](https://...logo.png){width="200"}
:::

# Confirm your email address

Your confirmation code is below -
enter it in your open browser window
and we'll help you get signed in.

::: callout center compact
# DFY-X7U
:::

If you didn't request this email,
there's nothing to worry about,
you can safely ignore it.

::: footer
Acme Inc. | 123 Main St
[Unsubscribe](https://example.com/unsub)
:::
Inbox
The same email rendered in a dark theme, with a heading, a highlighted confirmation code, and a footer

What emailmd handles for you.

It renders in Outlook.

MJML under the hood, so the output is tables and inline styles all the way down. You never have to look at them.

Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Yahoo

Seventeen directives for layout

Photo heroes, responsive columns, callouts, accordions, dividers, and a dozen more. Each one is a fenced block in your markdown.

An email rendered by emailmd, stacking a photo hero, a row of three column cells, a divider, a callout, and an accordion

Theming and automatic dark mode

Set your brand colors in frontmatter. emailmd derives a dark palette and serves it to readers whose client asks for one.

brand_color: "#0F766E"
background_color: "#F2F6F5"
card_color: "#EDF5F3"

Linting before you send

Missing alt text, insecure links, Gmail's 102KB clip limit, spam triggers, and more.

3warningImage is missing alt text3warningImage loads over http://5suggestion"act now" is a common spam-filter trigger7suggestion"Click here" says nothing out of context

Every send ships a plain-text part

Generated from the same markdown, so it never drifts from the HTML. Charts redraw themselves in ASCII instead of collapsing into a list of numbers.

::: chart
- Direct: 4,200
- Organic search: 3,100
- Social: 640
:::
Direct          ████████████████████████  4,200
Organic search  ██████████████████        3,100
Social          ████                      640

Charts drawn without a single image.

Built from table cells and text glyphs rather than images or SVG, so they still render when the client blocks remote content.

A monthly report email rendered by emailmd, showing four KPI tiles with change indicators and a weekly sales sparkline
::: chart
Horizontal bars from a list
::: progress
A meter running toward a goal
::: sparkline
A run of numbers as one strip
::: stats
KPI tiles with change indicators
::: steps
Ordered trackers and timelines
::: rating
Star scores, whole or half

Or let your AI write it.

The emailmd MCP server gives any assistant the tools to write, lint, and render emails, with a live preview link for every draft.

CursorVS Code

Or run it locally with npx emailmd mcp. See the MCP docs.

13 templates to start from.

Real emails, not skeletons. Open any one in the builder and make it yours.

Browse all templates

Start with the markdown you already know.

Type on the left, watch the email build itself on the right.

Open the builder

There is also a CLI for CI, a React builder to embed in your own app, and reusable partials.