CSS Functions

linear-gradient

CSS property · 9 supported, 2 partial, 10 unsupported across 21 clients

9 of 21 email clients render linear-gradient fully (Sep 2, 2026 data); it breaks outright in Outlook 365, Outlook (New), Outlook Classic and 7 more.

4/7 webmail, 3/6 desktop, 2/8 mobile clients support linear-gradient fully.
Unsupported in Outlook 365, Outlook (New), Outlook Classic, Outlook iOS and 6 more.
Partial in Gmail Android, Samsung Mail, behavior differs from browsers, test before relying on it.
Outlook Classic (Word engine, supported to at least 2029) does not fully support linear-gradient, and its replacement changes little here; see the deprecation diff.
Documented before/after fixes on this page cover 21 clients, including Gmail and Gmail Android.
Across all clients, only 6 of 298 tracked HTML/CSS features render identically everywhere.

Source: caniemail.com (MIT), via the Emailens engine. Last tested upstream Dec 29, 2021, synced by Emailens Sep 2, 2026.

Client Support

Client	Category	Engine	Support
Gmail	webmail	Gmail Web	Supported
Gmail Android	mobile	Gmail Mobile	Partial^{See caveat 1}
Gmail iOS	mobile	Gmail Mobile	Supported
Outlook 365	webmail	Outlook Web	Unsupported
Outlook (New)	desktop	Outlook Web	Unsupported^{See caveat 2}
Outlook Classic	desktop	Microsoft Word	Unsupported
Outlook iOS	mobile	Outlook Mobile	Unsupported
Outlook Android	mobile	Outlook Mobile	Unsupported
Outlook for Mac	desktop	WebKit	Unsupported
Apple Mail	desktop	WebKit	Supported
Apple Mail iOS	mobile	WebKit	Supported
Yahoo Mail	webmail	Yahoo	Unsupported
Yahoo Mail Android	mobile	Yahoo	Unsupported
Yahoo Mail iOS	mobile	Yahoo	Unsupported
Samsung Mail	mobile	Samsung	Partial^{See caveat 3}
Thunderbird	desktop	Gecko	Supported
HEY Mail	webmail	WebKit	Supported
Proton Mail	webmail	Proton	Supported
AOL Mail	webmail	AOL	Unsupported
Fastmail	webmail	Fastmail	Supported
Superhuman	desktop	Blink	Supported

Documented caveats (3)

1.Gmail Android: Buggy. Does not work inline in the background-image property. (See email-bugs#135)
2.Outlook (New): Gradients can be created in VML using type="gradient" on a <v:fill>. See VML documentation.
3.Samsung Mail: Partial. Not supported with Hotmail/Outlook accounts.

Caveats recorded by caniemail.com (MIT) and carried verbatim, one entry per wording rather than per client.

Client-by-client behaviour for linear-gradient

Fully supports linear-gradient (9): Gmail, Gmail iOS, Apple Mail, Apple Mail iOS, Thunderbird, HEY Mail, Proton Mail, Fastmail, Superhuman.

Partial support (2): Gmail Android, Samsung 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 (10): Outlook 365, Outlook (New), Outlook Classic, Outlook iOS, Outlook Android, Outlook for Mac, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Mail Android, Yahoo Mail iOS, AOL Mail. Plan fallbacks for these clients before relying on linear-gradient in production sends.

Fixes & Workarounds

Outlook 365

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Outlook (New)

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Outlook Classic

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

15 lines

<td bgcolor="#667eea" width="600" height="200"
    style="background-color: #667eea;
           background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);">
  <!--[if gte mso 9]>
  <v:rect xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" fill="true"
    stroke="false" style="width:600px;height:200px;">
    <v:fill type="gradient" color="#667eea" color2="#764ba2" angle="135" />
    <v:textbox inset="0,0,0,0">
  <![endif]-->
  <div style="padding: 40px; color: #fff;">Content here</div>
  <!--[if gte mso 9]>
    </v:textbox>
  </v:rect>
  <![endif]-->
</td>

Use VML to render gradients in Outlook

Outlook iOS

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Outlook Android

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Outlook for Mac

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Yahoo Mail

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Yahoo Mail Android

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Yahoo Mail iOS

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

AOL Mail

Unsupported

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Gmail Android

Partial

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Samsung Mail

Partial

Add a solid background-color fallback before the gradient.

Before (Broken)

before.html

4 lines

<td style="background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

After (Fixed)

fixed.html

5 lines

<td style="background-color: #667eea;
            background-image: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea, #764ba2);
            padding: 40px; color: #fff;">
  Content here
</td>

Add solid color fallback for gradient backgrounds

Production guidance for linear-gradient

linear-gradient is a CSS property. Across the email client matrix, 9 of 21 tracked clients support it fully, 2 only partially, and 10 not at all. The clients most likely to require a workaround for this feature are Outlook 365, Outlook (New), 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 linear-gradient 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.

Related Features

calc clamp conic-gradient fit-content max min radial-gradient

Check your own HTML for linear-gradient

Paste your own, or run the sample below. Analyzed in this page, with no signup and nothing stored.

Zero-Friction Engine Preview

Test your linear-gradient layout across 21 email clients

Preview rendering, catch CSS issues, and see how linear-gradient displays across Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail. Free, no account needed.

Instant live preview · No signup required · 21 email engines

Last tested upstream: Dec 29, 2021 · Last synced by Emailens: Sep 2, 2026

caniemail.com (MIT) records Dec 29, 2021 as the last time linear-gradient was tested in a real client, 4 years before this sync. Syncing copies that result forward, it does not re-test it. Carried in @emailens/engine data v0.12.2.