To help you get started, we've collected the most common ways that email-templates is being used within popular public projects.

Email Templates

Create, [preview][preview-email] (browser/iOS Simulator), and send custom email templates for [Node.js][node]. Made for [Forward Email][forward-email] and [Lad][].

> Need to send emails that land in the inbox instead of spam folder? Click here to learn how to send JavaScript contact forms and more with Node.js

Table of Contents

• Install
• Preview
• Usage
  • Debugging
  • Basic
  • Attachments
  • Automatic Inline CSS via Stylesheets
  • Render HTML and/or Text
  • Localization
  • Text-Only Email (no HTML)
  • Prefix Subject Lines
  • Custom Text Template
  • Custom Template Engine (e.g. EJS)
  • Custom Default Message Options
  • Custom Rendering (e.g. from a MongoDB database)
  • Absolute Path to Templates
  • Open Email Previews in Firefox
• Options
• Tips
  • Purge unused CSS
  • Optimized Pug Stylesheet Loading
• Plugins
• Breaking Changes
  • v12.0.0
  • v11.0.0
  • v10.0.0
  • v9.0.0
  • v8.0.0
  • v7.0.0
  • v6.0.0
  • v5.0.0
  • v4.0.0
  • v3.0.0
• Related
• Contributors
• License

Install

> By default we recommend [pug][] for your template engine, but you can use [any template engine][supported-engines]. Note that [preview-email][] is an optional dependency and is extremely helpful for rendering development previews of your emails automatically in your browser.

[npm][]:

npm install email-templates preview-email pug

Preview

We've added [preview-email][] by default to this package. This package allows you to preview emails in the browser and in the iOS Simulator.

This means that (by default) in the development environment (e.g. NODE_ENV=development) your emails will be rendered to the tmp directory for you and automatically opened in the browser.

If you have trouble previewing emails in your browser, you can configure a preview option which gets passed along to [open's options][open-options] (e.g. preview: { open: { app: 'firefox' } }).

See the example below for Open Email Previews in Firefox.

Usage

Debugging

Environment Flag

If you run into any issues with configuration, files, templates, locals, etc, then you can use the NODE_DEBUG environment flag:

NODE_DEBUG=email-templates node app.js

This will output to the console all debug statements in our codebase for this package.

Inspect Message

As of v3.6.1 you can now inspect the message passed to nodemailer.sendMail internally.

In the response object from email.send, you have access to res.originalMessage:

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(res => {
    console.log('res.originalMessage', res.originalMessage)
  })
  .catch(console.error);

Basic

> You can swap the transport option with a [Nodemailer transport][nodemailer-transport] configuration object or transport instance. We highly recommend using [Forward Email][forward-email] for your transport (it's the default in [Lad][]). > > If you want to send emails in development or test environments, set options.send to true.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  // uncomment below to send emails in development/test env:
  // send: true
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

The example above assumes you have the following directory structure:

.
├── app.js
└── emails
    └── mars
        ├── html.pug
        └── subject.pug

And the contents of the pug files are:

> html.pug:

p Hi #{name},
p Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

> subject.pug:

= `Hi ${name}, welcome to Mars`

Attachments

Please reference [Nodemailer's attachment documentation][attachments] for further reference.

> If you want to set default attachments sent with every email:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com',
    attachments: [
      {
        filename: 'text1.txt',
        content: 'hello world!'
      }
    ]
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

> If you want to set attachments sent individually:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com',
      attachments: [
        {
          filename: 'text1.txt',
          content: 'hello world!'
        }
      ]
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Automatic Inline CSS via Stylesheets

Simply include the path or URL to the stylesheet in your template's ``:

link(rel="stylesheet", href="/css/app.css", data-inline)

This will look for the file /css/app.css in the build/ folder. Also see Optimized Pug Stylesheet Loading below.

If this asset is in another folder, then you will need to modify the default options when creating an Email instance:

const email = new Email({
  // 
  juice: true,
  // Override juice global settings 
  juiceSettings: {
    tableElements: ['TABLE']
  },
  juiceResources: {
    // set this to `true` (since as of v11 it is `false` by default)
    applyStyleTags: true, // <------------ you need to set this to `true`
    webResources: {
      //
      // this is the relative directory to your CSS/image assets
      // and its default path is `build/`:
      //
      // e.g. if you have the following in the ` of your template:
      // ``
      // then this assumes that the file `build/style.css` exists
      //
      relativeTo: path.resolve('build')
      //
      // but you might want to change it to something like:
      // relativeTo: path.join(__dirname, '..', 'assets')
      // (so that you can re-use CSS/images that are used in your web-app)
      //
    }
  }
});

Render HTML and/or Text

If you don't need this module to send your email, you can still use it to render HTML and/or text templates.

Simply use the email.render(view, locals) method we expose (it's the same method that email.send uses internally).

> If you need to render a specific email template file (e.g. the HTML version):

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();

email
  .render('mars/html', {
    name: 'Elon'
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

The example above assumes you have the following directory structure (note that this example would only render the html.pug file):

.
├── app.js
└── emails
    └── mars
        ├── html.pug
        ├── text.pug
        └── subject.pug

The Promise for email.render resolves with a String (the HTML or text rendered).

> If you need pass juiceResources in render function, with this option you don't need create Email instance every time

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();

email
  .render({
    path: 'mars/html',
    juiceResources: {
      webResources: {
        // view folder path, it will get css from `mars/style.css`
        relativeTo: path.resolve('mars')
      }
    }
  }, {
    name: 'Elon'
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

The example above will be useful when you have a structure like this, this will be useful when you have a separate CSS file for every template

.
├── app.js
└── emails
    └── mars
        ├── html.pug
        ├── text.pug
        ├── subject.pug
        └── style.css

The Promise for email.render resolves with a String (the HTML or text rendered).

> If you need to render all available template files for a given email template (e.g. html.pug, text.pug, and subject.pug – you can use email.renderAll (this is the method that email.send uses).

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();

email
  .renderAll('mars', {
    name: 'Elon'
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

> If you need to render multiple, specific templates at once (but not all email templates available), then you can use Promise.all in combination with email.render:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email();
const locals = { name: 'Elon' };

Promise
  .all([
    email.render('mars/html', locals),
    email.render('mars/text', locals)
  ])
  .then(([ html, text ]) => {
    console.log('html', html);
    console.log('text', text);
  })
  .catch(console.error);

Localization

All you need to do is simply pass an [i18n][] configuration object as config.i18n (or an empty one as this example shows to use defaults).

> Don't want to handle localization and translation yourself? Just use [Lad][lad] – it's built in and uses [mandarin][] (with automatic Google Translate support) under the hood.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  i18n: {} // <------ HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      locale: 'en', // <------ CUSTOMIZE LOCALE HERE (defaults to `i18n.defaultLocale` - `en`)
      // is your user french?
      // locale: 'fr',
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Then slightly modify your templates to use localization functions.

> html.pug:

p= `${t('Hi')} ${name},`
p= t('Welcome to Mars, the red planet.')

> subject.pug:

p= `${t('Hi')} ${name}, ${t('welcome to Mars')}`

Note that if you use [Lad][], you have a built-in filter called translate:

p: :translate(locale) Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

Localization using Handlebars template engine

If you are using handlebars and you are using localization files with named values, you will quickly see that there is no way to properly call the t function in your template and specify named values.

If, for example you have this in your translation file:

{
  "greetings": "Hi {{ firstname }}",
  "welcome_message": "Welcome to Mars, the red planet."
}

And you would like to use it in your template like this:

> html.hbs:

<p>{{ t "greetings" firstname="Marcus" }}</p>
<p>{{ t "welcome_message" }}</p>

This would not work because the second argument sent by handlebars to the function would be a handlebar helper options object instead of just the named values.

A possible workaround you can use is to introduce your own translation helper in your template locals:

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      locale: 'en', // <------ CUSTOMIZE LOCALE HERE (defaults to `i18n.defaultLocale` - `en`)
      // is your user french?
      // locale: 'fr',
      name: 'Elon',
      $t(key, options) {
        // <------ THIS IS OUR OWN TRANSLATION HELPER
        return options.data.root.t(
          { phrase: key, locale: options.data.root.locale },
          options.hash
        );
      }
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Then slightly modify your templates to use your own translation helper functions.

> html.hbs:

<p>{{ $t "greetings" firstname="Marcus" }}</p>
<p>{{ $t "welcome_message" }}</p>

Text-Only Email (no HTML)

If you wish to have only a text-based version of your email you can simply pass the option textOnly: true.

Regardless if you use the htmlToText option or not (see next example), it will still render only a text-based version.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  textOnly: true // <----- HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Prefix Subject Lines

You can pass an option to prefix subject lines with a string, which is super useful for deciphering development / staging / production environment emails.

For example, you could make it so on non-production environments the email is prefixed with a [DEVELOPMENT] Some Subject Line Here.

You could do this manually by passing a message.subject property, however if you are storing your subject lines in templates (e.g. subject.ejs or subject.pug) then it's not as easy.

Simply use the subjectPrefix option and set it to whatever you wish (note you will need to append a trailing space if you wish to have a space after the prefix; see example below):

const Email = require('email-templates');

const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  subjectPrefix: env === 'production' ? false : `[${env.toUpperCase()}] `; // <--- HERE
});

Custom Text Template

> By default we use html-to-text to generate a plaintext version and attach it as message.text.

If you'd like to customize the text body, you can pass message.text or create a text template file just like you normally would for html and subject.

You may also set config.htmlToText: false to force the usage of the text template file.

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com'
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  },
  htmlToText: false // <----- HERE
});

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

> text.pug:

| Hi #{name},
| Welcome to Mars, the red planet.

Custom Template Engine (e.g. EJS)

1. Install your desired template engine (e.g. [EJS][])

   [npm][]:

   npm install ejs
   

2. Set the extension in options and send an email

   const Email = require('email-templates');
   
   const email = new Email({
     message: {
       from: 'test@example.com'
     },
     transport: {
       jsonTransport: true
     },
     views: {
       options: {
         extension: 'ejs' // <---- HERE
       }
     }
   });
   

Custom Default Message Options

You can configure your Email instance to have default message options, such as a default "From", an unsubscribe header, etc.

For a list of all available message options and fields see the Nodemailer message reference.

> Here's an example showing how to set a default custom header and a list unsubscribe header:

const Email = require('email-templates');

const email = new Email({
  message: {
    from: 'test@example.com',
    headers: {
      'X-Some-Custom-Thing': 'Some-Value'
    },
    list: {
      unsubscribe: 'https://example.com/unsubscribe'
    }
  },
  transport: {
    jsonTransport: true
  }
});

Custom Rendering (e.g. from a MongoDB database)

You can pass a custom config.render function which accepts two arguments view and locals and must return a Promise.

Note that if you specify a custom config.render, you should have it use email.juiceResources before returning the final HTML. The example below shows how to do this.

If you wanted to read a stored EJS template from MongoDB, you could do something like:

const ejs = require('ejs');

const email = new Email({
  // ...
  render: (view, locals) => {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      // this example assumes that `template` returned
      // is an ejs-based template string
      // view = `${template}/html` or `${template}/subject` or `${template}/text`
      db.templates.findOne({ name: view }, (err, template) => {
        if (err) return reject(err);
        if (!template) return reject(new Error('Template not found'));
        let html = ejs.render(template, locals);
        html = await email.juiceResources(html);
        resolve(html);
      });
    });
  }
});

Absolute Path to Templates

As of v5.0.1+ we now support passing absolute paths to templates for rendering (per discussion in #320.

For both email.send and email.render, the template option passed can be a relative path or absolute:

> Relative example:

email
  .send({
    template: 'mars',
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

> Absolute example:

const path = require('path');

// ...

email
  .send({
    template: path.join(__dirname, 'some', 'folder', 'mars')
    message: {
      to: 'elon@spacex.com'
    },
    locals: {
      name: 'Elon'
    }
  })
  .then(console.log)
  .catch(console.error);

Open Email Previews in Firefox

The preview option can be a custom Object of options to pass along to [open's options][open-options].

> Firefox example:

const email = new Email({
  // ...
  preview: {
    open: {
      app: 'firefox',
      wait: false
    }
  }
});

Options

For a list of all available options and defaults view the configuration object, or reference the list below:

• views (Object)
  • root (String) - defaults to the current working directory's "emails" folder via path.resolve('emails')
  • options (Object)
    • extension (String) - defaults to 'pug', and is the default file extension for templates
    • map (Object) - a template file extension mapping, defaults to { hbs: 'handlebars', njk: 'nunjucks' } (this is useful if you use different file extension naming conventions)
    • engineSource (Object) - the default template engine source, defaults to [@ladjs/consolidate][consolidate]
  • locals (Object) - locals to pass to templates for rendering
    • cache (Boolean) - defaults to false for development and test environments, and true for all others (via process.env.NODE_ENV), whether or not to cache templates
    • pretty (Boolean) - defaults to true, but is automatically set to false for subject templates and text-based emails
• message (Object) - default [Nodemailer message object][nodemailer-message-object] for messages to inherit (defaults to an empty object {})
• send (Boolean) - whether or not to send emails, defaults to false for development and test environments, and true for all others (via process.env.NODE_ENV) (NOTE: IF YOU ARE NOT USING NODE_ENV YOU WILL NEED TO MANUALLY SET THIS TO true)
• preview (Boolean or Object) - whether or not to preview emails using [preview-email][], defaults to false unless the environment is development (via process.env.NODE_ENV) – if you wish to disable the iOS Simulator then pass { openSimulator: false }
• i18n (Boolean or Object) - translation support for email templates, this accepts an I18N configuration object (defaults to false, which means it is disabled) which is passed along to [@ladjs/i18n][i18n] – see Localization example for more insight
• render (Function) - defaults to a stable function that accepts two argument, view (String) and locals (Object) - you should not need to set this unless you have a need for custom rendering (see Custom Rendering (e.g. from a MongoDB database))
• customRender (Boolean) - defaults to false, unless you pass your own render function, and in that case it will be automatically set to true
• textOnly (Boolean) - whether or not to force text-only rendering of a template and disregard the template folder (defaults to false)
• htmlToText (Object) - configuration object for [html-to-text][]
  • ignoreImage (Boolean) - defaults to true
• subjectPrefix (Boolean or String) - defaults to false, but if set to a string it will use that string as a prefix for your emails' subjects
• juice (Boolean) - whether or not to use [juice][] when rendering templates (defaults to true) (note that if you have a custom rendering function you will need to implement [juice][] in it yourself)
• juiceResources (Object) - options to pass to juice.juiceResources method (only used if juice option is set to true, see [juice's][juice] API for more information
  • applyStyleTags (Boolean) - defaults to false (as of v11, since modern browsers now support `