float

Client-by-client behaviour for float

Fully supports float (13): Gmail, Outlook 365, Outlook iOS, Outlook Android, Outlook for Mac, Apple Mail, Apple Mail iOS, Samsung Mail, Thunderbird, HEY Mail, Proton Mail, Fastmail, Superhuman.

Partial support (6): Gmail Android, Gmail iOS, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Mail Android, Yahoo Mail iOS, AOL Mail. Expect rendering quirks unique to each engine. Partial support typically means a subset of values, an ignored shorthand, or sanitizer-specific rewrites.

No support (2): Outlook (New), Outlook Classic. Plan fallbacks for these clients before relying on float in production sends.

Fixes & Workarounds

<img src="photo.jpg" style="float: left;
  margin-right: 16px;" width="200" />
<p>Text wraps around the image.</p>

<table role="presentation" cellpadding="0"
  cellspacing="0" border="0">
  <tr>
    <td width="200" valign="top" style="padding-right: 16px;">
      <img src="photo.jpg" width="200"
        style="display: block; border: 0;" />
    </td>
    <td valign="top">
      <p>Text next to the image.</p>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Production guidance for float

float is a CSS property. Across the email client matrix, 13 of 15 tracked clients support it fully, 6 only partially, and 2 not at all. The clients most likely to require a workaround for this feature are Outlook Classic. Each of them needs a tailored fallback. See the per-client examples above for the specific code fix Emailens recommends.

When in doubt, ship a baseline that renders without float and treat it as progressive enhancement on clients where support is verified. Emailens automatically detects cross-client divergence on this feature when you preview an email, so you can see exactly which template paths break before a campaign goes out.