Choosing the email type
The Email Type field decides what the customer receives: a designed email, plain text, or both in one message. This article explains the three options.
The three types
| Email Type | What the customer receives |
|---|---|
| HTML | Your message inside your WooCommerce email design, with the Email Heading at the top. This is the default, and it looks like the other emails your store sends. |
| Plain text | The message body as plain text only, without the heading or any design. |
| Multipart (HTML + plain text) | One email that carries both versions. The customer’s email app decides which one to show. |
Note: Post SMTP sends only the HTML version of a Multipart (HTML + plain text) email while its Mailer Type setting is PostSMTP, its default. Set Mailer Type to PHPMailer in Post SMTP’s settings to send both versions.
The design of HTML emails comes from your WooCommerce email settings, such as the logo, colors and footer text, under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails. Change them there and every template follows.
Note: WooCommerce has an optional block email editor that is still in testing. While it is switched on, WooCommerce hides these design settings, and emails from this plugin keep the design they had before. Change the settings before you switch the block editor on.
How the plain text version is made
For Plain text, and for the plain text half of Multipart (HTML + plain text), the plugin turns the body you wrote into text:
- Each paragraph, heading, list item and table row starts on a new line.
- Bold, italics, bullets and other formatting are removed.
- A link keeps its address: “View your order” linked to your site becomes “View your order (https://example.com/…)”.
- Images are left out. An image that is also a link leaves the link’s address instead.
Preview a plain text template to see the result before you send it. See Previewing and testing a template.
Which one to choose
Most stores use HTML, since it matches the order confirmations and other emails customers already get from the store. Plain text looks like a personal message. Multipart (HTML + plain text) also suits customers whose email apps are set to show plain text, since they get a version made for that.