I’m having trouble with HTML email delivery specifically to Gmail accounts. When I send newsletters using both ACYmailing extension on Joomla and Mailchimp platform, they get delivered successfully to Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and my company email server. However, Gmail users never receive these HTML formatted messages.
Plain text emails from my server reach Gmail without any problems, so the issue seems related to HTML formatting. I’ve checked my HTML code thoroughly but can’t identify what might be causing Gmail to reject or filter these messages.
Has anyone experienced similar delivery issues with Gmail? Could there be specific HTML elements or formatting that Gmail blocks? I’m wondering if my newsletter template has something that triggers Gmail’s spam filters while other email providers accept it normally.
Same thing happened to me 6 months back with a client’s newsletter. Spent weeks figuring it out - turns out Gmail hates table-based layouts, especially with tons of nested tables. They’re way pickier about HTML structure than other email providers. Also caught that image-heavy newsletters with barely any text set off their spam filters. Strip your HTML down to basics, then add stuff back piece by piece to find what’s breaking it. And double-check if your emails are just landing in spam instead of getting blocked entirely - most people never look there.
Gmail’s flagging your content ratios, not just HTML structure. Had this exact issue migrating from our old newsletter system. Gmail analyzes text-to-image ratios way more aggressively than other providers. If you’ve got large images with little text, Gmail flags it as suspicious even with perfect HTML. Also found Gmail hates too many external links or tracking pixels - sees it as commercial spam. Create a version with more text and fewer tracking elements. Most important: warm up your Gmail sending reputation. Start with small batches to engaged subscribers before scaling up. Authentication helps, but content analysis usually kills HTML newsletters while plain text gets through.
i totally get that! make sure ur domain is properly authenticated. also, try to keep the html clean, too many styles can trigger spam filters. and check ur promotions tab in gmail, that’s where mine usually goes.
check your html for weird characters or encoding issues - gmail’s super picky about that. also, gmail throttles bulk emails way harder than other providers. send too many at once and they vanish. try smaller batches with delays between sends.
Had the same Gmail nightmare, so I automated our whole email pipeline with Latenode.
Gmail’s filters change constantly - what works today breaks tomorrow. Instead of chasing HTML fixes forever, I built a workflow that tests different email formats across multiple providers before hitting send.
It splits your newsletter into variations: strips bad CSS, converts tables to divs, tweaks image ratios, A/B tests subject lines. Then sends test batches to seed accounts on Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook and watches delivery rates live.
When Gmail blocks a format, it auto-switches to a backup template that’s working. No more manual debugging or losing subscribers.
I track which emails hit spam vs inbox too. Gmail’s promotions tab works totally different from spam detection - you’ve got to handle both.
Best part? Works with any platform - Mailchimp, your Joomla thing, whatever. Plug it in and let automation deal with Gmail’s BS while you write content.
Gmail’s filtering is way stricter than other email providers. This sounds like a sender reputation or IP authentication issue, not just HTML formatting. I hit the same problem last year - client’s newsletters worked everywhere except Gmail. Turned out Gmail was silently dropping emails because of missing DKIM records and messy SPF settings. Plain text got through fine, but HTML triggered extra scrutiny from their filters. Gmail also hates certain CSS properties and inline styles that Yahoo and Outlook don’t care about. Check your server logs first - see if Gmail’s even trying to deliver. Sometimes they just reject at the SMTP level without sending any bounce message.