CogBlog

In 1997 I co-founded COGBOX in with Michelle DeCol. Since then we've offered online marketing, web development and corporate and brand identity to a wide range of clients. Here I post thoughts and comments on search marketing, recent projects, and other things I find interesting.

Gmail Displays Text Version of MIME Email by Default

Published Thursday, July 01, 2004 by chris | E-mail this post

This morning I noticed that Gmail by default will display the text version of a MIME email message.

MIME is a way of separating an email message into individual parts, each of which can have a separate document type. For instance, you can send a message containing an HTML version, a plain text version, and an image all within the same email. The vast majority of all messages sent and received are MIME messages.

The interesting thing to me is that Gmail will display the text version of your message by preference, even if there is an HTML version available. But, if you send an HTML only version it will display it properly. Many companies send the text version just as a backup in case the recipient's email client cannot read the HTML version. Usually the text version is given much less thought and preparation.

But, if your mailing list contains Gmail and you send out MIME messages, you should start taking more care with the text version.