Gmail Clipping Guard
The problem
Gmail truncates any email whose HTML exceeds roughly 102 KB. Everything past the limit disappears behind a “View entire message” link.
That link hides more than the bottom of your design. Your footer and unsubscribe link vanish (a compliance risk), calls to action below the fold of the clip are never seen, and because open-tracking pixels usually sit at the very end of the HTML, clipped emails often stop reporting opens, so your metrics degrade at the exact moment your email gets worse.
The catch is that HTML size isn’t something you can see while you build, so teams usually discover clipping from a test send, or worse, from a customer. Nitro puts that number in front of you as you work.
How it works
Nitro measures the size of the rendered HTML in the preview
(.content-preview) and shows it as a live badge, color-coded
against the clip point:
| Badge | Size | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Under 102 KB | Safe. Gmail renders the whole email. |
| Yellow | 102 – 104 KB | On the line. Small edits or personalization could tip it over. |
| Red | Over 104 KB | Will be clipped. Time to cut weight. |
The number reflects your content only: any labels or markers Nitro itself injects into the preview are excluded from the total before measuring.
Using it
- Enable Gmail Clipping Guard › Email Builder in the Nitro popup.
- Open a template in Email Template Studio and switch to a tab with a preview (Data or Test).
- The size badge appears after the last tab. It updates as the preview re-renders.
Analyze mode: find the heavy rows
Knowing you are over the limit is half the battle; knowing what to cut is the other half. Click the magnifying glass next to the badge to toggle Analyze mode:
- Every row in the preview gets an inline label showing its individual HTML weight.
- Click a label to outline that row in magenta, so you can match it to the design.
- Heavy rows are usually product grids and anything with deeply nested tables or repeated inline styles.
In Journey Builder
Enable Gmail Clipping Guard › Journey Builder and the same size meter appears on every email card on the journey canvas, plus in the config drawer when you open one. Each badge measures its own email, so an oversized template can’t hide in the middle of a ten-step flow.
Notes on the limit
- Gmail’s clip point is approximately 102 KB of HTML; it is not officially documented and can vary slightly, which is why Nitro adds a warning band before the red zone.
- Personalization can grow the final HTML beyond what the preview shows (long names, extra recommendation rows). If you regularly render variable-length content, leave more headroom.
- Other clients have limits too, but Gmail’s is the one that bites most lists first, so it is the reference point.