I’m wondering if it’s possible to make clickable links work inside email subject lines. I’ve seen some emails where the subject line seems to have interactive elements, but I’m not sure how to implement this properly.
I’ve been experimenting with different approaches in my email sending function, but when I try to include HTML anchor tags in the subject, they just show up as plain text instead of becoming clickable links. Here’s what I’m currently trying:
public function sendContactEmail($formData)
{
$sender = "[email protected]";
$recipient = "[email protected]";
$template = 'mail/contact_form';
$emailSubject = "New Contact Form <a href='https://mysite.com/dashboard'>View Dashboard</a>";
$templateData = $formData;
$this->dispatchEmail($sender, $recipient, $emailSubject, $template, $templateData);
}
The problem is that the entire anchor tag gets displayed as plain text in the subject line instead of creating a working link. Is there a proper way to achieve this, or are clickable links in subject lines not supported by most email clients?
yup, it’s true! email subjects are only plain text, so your links won’t be clickable. email clients might make links look nicer, but that’s just formatting. you’ll def wanna put those links in the email body instead where they can actually work. learned that the hard way too!
Nope, clickable links in email subject lines don’t work. Subject lines only accept plain text, so your HTML anchor tags just show up as literal text instead of working links. This happens across all major email clients - Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, you name it. It’s actually intentional security to prevent phishing attacks and stop people from accidentally clicking malicious links in subject lines. You might’ve seen emails that looked like they had interactive elements, but those were probably just preheader text or subject lines using Unicode characters and emojis for visual emphasis - not actual clickable stuff. Some email clients will auto-detect URLs in subject lines and display them differently, but they still won’t be clickable. Your best bet is keeping the subject line as descriptive plain text and putting all your links in the email body where HTML actually works.
Email subject lines only support plain text - no HTML allowed. Those anchor tags in your PHP code will just show up as literal text because email protocols don’t support HTML markup in headers. I made this same mistake when I started doing email campaigns and couldn’t figure out why my formatted subjects looked awful. You might’ve seen other emails that look interactive, but that’s usually just email clients auto-detecting URLs and styling them (they still won’t be clickable though). Some clients show rich snippets or preview text that looks interactive, but that’s not the actual subject line. For your contact form, just use something simple like “New Contact Form Submission” and put all your dashboard links in the email body where HTML actually works. Plus, weird subject line formatting can trigger spam filters anyway.