Flex / Grid properties are deleted in gmail email
I have a script in PHP that sends the following HTML by mail :
<html class="no-js" lang="en">
<body>
<div style="width: 70%;background-color: #060b2b;margin: auto;flex-direction: column;display: flex;">
<h1 style="margin-top: 50px;color: white;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;">Vous avez reçu une nouvelle notification.</h1>
<div style="width: 80%;padding: 50px;margin-top: 50px;background-color: #222;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;display: flex;">
<p style="color:white;margin: auto;text-align: center;">{{$notification}}</p>
</div>
<a href="" style="margin-top: 50px;margin-bottom: 50px;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;color: white;padding:15px;background-color: #0E0E0E;">Accéder à mon compte</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
But the email received (when I inspect the main div) doesn't show the property flex-direction: column;
It seems that gmail filters those properties ?
Is this normal ?
Answer
Designing HTML e-mails is not like designing HTML websites. There's a huge technology gap between e-mail clients and web browsers. It's as if browsers keep evolving, but e-mail clients are stuck in 1998.
In the world of HTML e-mail, embedded and external styles are bad, CSS3 is bad, JavaScript is bad, while.. inline styles and tables for layout are good. In this world, old-school coding methods are alive and well.
It's not surprising that Gmail will strip out CSS3 properties. Your best bet is to stick to tables and inline styles.
UPDATE: Gmail now supports embedded styles.
More information: