I’m having trouble with HTML emails sent through Swift. The email content is pretty basic - just a centered holiday greeting image with simple HTML formatting.
The weird thing is that it displays fine in most email clients like Thunderbird, Outlook Express, and Yahoo Mail. But when Gmail users receive it, the entire email gets hidden behind the ‘Show quoted content’ link. Users have to manually click that small link to see the actual email content.
This is really frustrating because most people won’t even notice that link and will think they got an empty email. Has anyone else run into this issue with Gmail? What causes Gmail to think regular HTML email content is quoted text? Is there something specific in the HTML structure or headers that triggers this behavior?
Gmail’s algorithm thinks your HTML emails are quoted content when it spots patterns that look like forwards or replies. This usually happens with certain div tags or styling that Gmail flags as quoted text - especially divs with specific indentation. I had this exact problem last year with automated notifications from my web app. Fixed it by switching to table-based layouts instead of div containers and making sure the main content starts right away without tons of whitespace or nested elements. Also make sure your email doesn’t start with stuff like ‘From:’ or ‘Sent:’ that might confuse Gmail’s parser. Testing with Gmail’s own SMTP service helped me figure out which elements were causing the issue.
yea, i totally get it! the spam filters can be tricky. making sure you have a proper SPF/DKIM setup was a game changer for me too. also, putting some plain text in there is a good call. fingers crossed it helps you out!
Gmail’s algorithm thinks certain HTML patterns are quoted content and flags them. This usually happens with too much whitespace or specific CSS that Gmail links to forwarded messages. I had this exact problem with our company newsletter emails. Fixed it by restructuring the HTML - got rid of deeply nested containers and removed background colors plus border styles that trigger Gmail’s filters. Also noticed Gmail auto-flags anything with reply-style formatting like blockquotes or certain margins. Strip your HTML down to basics, then add styling back piece by piece to find what’s breaking it. Gmail’s detection system is way too aggressive - it’s meant to collapse forwarded content but catches legit emails too.