How to Make a Template in Gmail: Ultimate Guide

28.9.2023
Read time: 13 min
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How to Make a Template in Gmail: Ultimate Guide
Try Publicate For Free Today
02.03.2022
Read time: 13 min

Gmail continues to be the most popular email platform, boasting 1.8 million users globally. With its massive popularity, it makes sense that many people are looking to make a template in Gmail and send email newsletters using the platform.

We’re going to show you how you can create a Gmail template with ease using an email builder like Publicate.

Guide Index
Email sketch mockup
Picture from Unsplash

What are Email Templates?

But first, what is an email template anyways? An email template is a prebuilt blueprint of the components of an email. The preformatted setup can be reused or customized how you see fit so that you can save time during your email creation process.

For email newsletters, templates are pre-composed with content blocks and areas where you can customize by add your own text or insert multimedia to make for an eye-catching design.

What are the Benefits of Gmail Templates?

Gmail templates are widely sought after because they offer immense benefits to newsletter and email creators everywhere. Here’s how they can help you:

1. Save Time

Perhaps the most valuable benefit of using Gmail templates is that you undoubtedly save yourself and your team time. Think about it - you never have to start an email from scratch.

2. Promote Consistency

For branding and business purposes, templates are a great tool to aid in standardization to protect brand consistency and recognizability. Consistency breeds loyalty and trust.

3. Enable Collaboration

With Gmail templates, you can share your creations with your team. Or, anyone can log into an email builder like Publicate to create, customize, and use customizable, engaging Gmail templates.

How to Create Email Templates in Gmail?

When you’re looking to make a template in Gmail directly, you’ll find that it’s a little more tricky than you may think. The steps itself are straightforward, but there are some caveats and challenges to be aware of.

To make a template in Gmail, you can:

  1. Click on the settings icon
  2. Click on “see all settings”
  3. Select “Advanced”
  4. Navigate to “Templates” and select “Enable”
  5. Click “Save Changes”

Now, you can start creating templates in your composition window, but it will be plain text email. If you are looking to create email newsletter templates with multimedia, branding, text, and more, then give an email builder like Publicate a try.

Publicate is stocked with hundreds of pre-built templates by purpose, easy drag-and-drop functionality, and integrated with Gmail directly, the creation, export, and send process is simpler than ever.

All templates are professionally designed for engagement and no coders are needed. There is also an image editor for cropping and scaling within the editor itself, plus analytics like heat maps so you can really focus on the content that matters.

How to Send Email Templates in Gmail?

Speaking of sending, it’s also straightforward in Gmail for regular plain text email templates. If you create a text email, you can send it out by following these steps:

  1. Create an email draft by selecting “Compose”
  2. Click the three dots
  3. Hover over “Templates”
  4. Select your template
  5. Customize it within your window and hit “Send”

For email newsletters, we will touch on how you can use Publicate to export and send them directly in Gmail shortly!

How to Manage Existing Templates in Gmail?

Templates are intended to be starting points, so naturally, you’ll want to edit them and change them each time you are ready to hit “Send.”

In Gmail, you can manage your existing templates by either deleting them or overwriting them.

Here’s how:

Deleting Templates

To remove a template from your library, you can click on the three dots in the bottom right of the Compose window. Hover over “Templates,” click on “Delete Template” and find the template you want to get rid of.

Overwriting Templates

You can’t edit templates, but you can overwrite them. Follow the same steps as above, but after you hover over “Templates,” you can click on “Safe draft as template” and then “Overwrite Template.”

How to Use Email Templates in Gmail for Businesses?

In business, your emails become the face of your brand. That’s why being able to customize the email and add your brand’s tone of voice and styling can create a sense of professionalism.

Gmail allows you to add personalized text fields, and share email templates with team members. So, if you want to send plain text emails to a mass audience, but you want it to appear with the recipient’s first name, last name, or company name, the personalized fields make this possible.

And, if you’re creating templates that you want to disseminate across your team or organization, you can also do that. However, you’ll have to copy and paste them into each employee’s account because the templates exist to the single email address alone.

As you can see, with Gmail, there are many limitations when it comes to branding and the customization of emails. Besides creating simple text emails, deleting them, and overwriting them, you don’t have much else you can do. That is, unless you leverage an email builder like Publicate, which integrates directly with Gmail.

Publicate is an email builder that removes the need for designers and coders because it features drag-and-drop functionality and visual editors. Along with the ease of designing, users gain access to analytics, content libraries, and built-in image editors, allowing you to crop and resize photos directly within the design phase.

How to Improve Email Templates in Gmail?

When working within Gmail, despite its limitations, to make a template in Gmail, keep in mind these best practices to improve your template.

1. Apply Titles

To make it easy to navigate to the template you need, aptly title your creations. For example, you can title them according to their content, such as: “Password Reset,” “Sales Pitch,” or “username Setup.” This way, they are easy to find when you need to send them again.

2. Use Publicate

To truly maximize what you can do with templates in Gmail, start using an email builder like Publicate. By doing so, you can create beautifully designed email newsletters or simple text emails from the pre-built library of templates (or design your own).

Once you’re ready to send, you can export your HTML email and it’ll appear in your Gmail drafts through the integration feature.

Gmail loading in a browser window
Picture from Unsplash

How to Create Email Templates in Gmail with Publicate?

It really is that easy with Publicate! To make a template in Gmail using Publicate, all you have to do is sign up and log in (or try it free here). When you log in, you can either start from scratch and drop in your own content blocks or begin with a template.

Since Publicate saves you all the design and coding time, you can allocate that time to crafting the best message possible and inserting the best content.

Rather than having to copy and paste HTML or test your design across email platforms, you can leverage Publicate’s direct integration to simply access your newsletter in Gmail. Alternatively, if you’d rather export the HTML, that’s also an option.

Publicate is tested with over 50 email providers, so you can confidently know that your creation will appear as you see it in your recipients’ inboxes.

How to Send Email Templates in Gmail with Publicate?

After you’ve finalized your design in Publicate, you can simply send it out using Gmail, Outlook, or your preferred email provider. Since Publicate is directly integrated, you click “Export to Gmail” when you’re ready to send.

And walla! – your pristine template is loaded into your Gmail drafts. Navigate to Gmail and click on “Compose.” You’ll see the Publicate icon in your menu of options, along with the list of templates you made using Publicate. Once you choose the template, it will automatically load properly into the body of your email. Just add recipients and a subject line and hit “Send.” That really is all!

Wrap Up

As you now know, you can make a template in Gmail using Gmail itself, but you will be very limited in scope. You’d have to spend time testing your own creations, ensuring that they are mobile responsive, and ultimately, creating new templates every time you have a new communication need. Furthermore, Gmail doesn’t provide you with visual editing capabilities or drag-and-drop functionality.

Or, you can leverage an email builder like Publicate to design professional and engaging email newsletters and templates. Then, you can still send them out using Gmail, all thanks to the direct integration. Try it for yourself for free.