Why do emails not show in HTML format?

HTML email doesn’t work

HTML-formatted emails are SENT only when ALL of the following conditions are met:

  • HTML/MIME format is enabled in your admin
  • Customer has elected to choose HTML-formatted emails
  • You have the HTML email templates present in the /email/ folder of your site, and haven’t changed permissions in any way that would prevent PHP from reading them (defaults are recommended)

Occasionally even though the email may be SENT in HTML format, it may ARRIVE without the HTML section displaying properly, for a few possible reasons:

  1. your hosting company’s webserver stripped the HTML out because it appeared to violate a spam rule
  2. the recipient’s hosting company stripped the HTML out because it appeared to violate a spam rule
  3. the recipient is using a free webmail-based email reader which alters the HTML content in a way that prevents your content from being displayed as desired
  4. you composed the email (altered the HTML in the template) to use advanced XHTML/CSS that’s not supported by the recipient’s email client
  5. the recipient is using an email program which doesn’t render the HTML portion properly
  6. the recipient has changed their email program settings to disallow HTML content, either as a general rule or perhaps only from senders whom they’ve not whitelisted as known senders

Be sure to review the troubleshooting FAQs for other tips related to potential delivery problems.




Still have questions? Use the Search box in the upper right, or try the full list of FAQs. If you can't find it there, head over to the Zen Cart support forum and ask there in the appropriate subforum. In your post, please include your Zen Cart and PHP versions, and a link to your site.

Is there an error or omission on this page? Please post to General Questions on the support forum. Or, if you'd like to open a pull request, just review the guidelines and get started. You can even PR right here.
Last modified September 13, 2020 by Scott C Wilson (dfc38fe4).