How to Create an Email Template in Gmail

Turn on templates in Gmail

1. In Gmail on a computer, select Settings (the gear) > See all settings.
2. Open the Advanced tab and select Enable next to Templates.
3. Scroll down and select Save Changes.

Google says templates can only be turned on and used from a computer, so the Gmail app for Android and iPhone has no Templates menu. Steps below were checked against Gmail Help in November 2026.

How to create an email template in Gmail

1. Select Compose and write the text you want to reuse.
2. In the compose window, select More options (the three dots) > Templates > Save draft as template > Save as new template.
3. Name the template and select Save.

To change one, write the new version in a compose window, then choose Save draft as template, pick the template under Overwrite Template and select Save. To delete one, choose Templates > Delete template; Google warns a deleted template can't be recovered.

Insert a template into an email

Open Compose, select More options > Templates, and pick the template under Insert template. It drops into the message where you can edit it before sending. The saved template changes only when you overwrite it.

In our test it went in at the cursor, after any text already there, and it worked the same in a reply, where it lands above the quoted message and the subject stays "Re: …". In a new message with an empty subject, Gmail fills the subject with the template's name, not the subject you saved it with, so name templates the way you want the subject to read. A subject you typed first is left alone.

Send a template as an automatic reply

A filter can answer matching emails with a template, with no one at the keyboard:

1. Select Show search options in the search box and enter what to match: a sender, a subject, words.
2. Select Create filter, tick Send template and pick the template.
3. Select Create filter again.

Test the search first: a broad one replies to far more mail than you meant. In our test the reply went out 15 seconds after the message arrived, with no Gmail tab open, from your address with +canned.response added (you+canned.response@gmail.com) and the subject "Re: " plus the original. It was addressed to the message's envelope sender (its Return-Path), not the From address. For mail sent through an email service, that is a bounce address nobody reads, so a template auto-reply suits mail from people, not from newsletters or apps.

Templates or layouts?

Layouts sit under Layouts at the bottom of the compose window (or under More options) on the Workspace editions that have them. You set a default style once (logo, colours, fonts, footer) and pick a design per email. Google caps each layout at 10,000 characters, 40 images and 50 tiles, with images totalling 25 MB. Once a layout is in a draft you change it with Edit rather than by typing in the message, and layouts are saved in Google Drive, where you can share them. Google also warns that Outlook, which renders with Word, may show a layout differently, so preview it before a large send. For text you resend, use a template; for a branded newsletter-style email from your own inbox, use a layout.

What a Gmail template keeps

Google's help page doesn't say, so we tested it on 2026-11-12 in Gmail on the web: a draft with a subject, a recipient, a text attachment and styled HTML, saved as a template, then inserted into a new message.

Link to files in Google Drive with Add as link instead of attaching them. Google publishes no limit on the number of templates; the 50 quoted by some guides is not on Google's templates page and matches the 50-tile cap on layouts.

Using an HTML email template in Gmail

Gmail has no HTML source view, so pasting code into a template saves the code as text. The two methods that work, pasting the page rendered in a browser or replacing the compose body in the developer tools, are in how to send an HTML email from Gmail. Once the rendered email is in the compose window, save it as a template as above.

The styles were stripped by the compose window as soon as the HTML was loaded into it, before anything was saved: the template keeps what the editor shows. In our test that meant no style block and no background colours, so a coloured button became white text on nothing. One more catch: the link in our saved draft came back pointing at a google.com redirect instead of our address, so open a link in the inserted template before you rely on it. Gmail's HTML and CSS support lists what Gmail keeps in received mail. Keep the HTML under Gmail's 102 KB clipping limit, and send yourself a test before anyone else. To skip the build, start from one of our free HTML email templates, already checked in Gmail. Keep the source in your own editor: a Gmail template is a way to resend a finished email, not where the design lives.