emailmd is a tool that renders Markdown into "email-safe" HTML, aimed at people who want to write emails in Markdown and avoid hand-writing complex HTML. The responsive HTML it generates is compatible with Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Yahoo, and other clients.
Main capabilities
- Convert Markdown into email-compatible HTML.
- Built-in command-line interface; run emailmd --help to view all options.
- Provides @emailmd/react, including the live preview Hook useEmailmd, the <EmailPreview /> preview iframe component, and the <EmailmdBuilder /> builder component that can be embedded in your own app.
- Provides an MCP server that exposes three tools to AI assistants: render (Markdown to email-safe HTML), lint (flag deliverability issues without rendering), read_docs (query emailmd syntax); it has been published to the official MCP registry under the identifier dev.emailmd/emailmd.
- Supports writing charts and data components as ordinary Markdown lists, including bar charts, progress bars, mini line charts, KPI tiles, step trackers, star ratings, and more. These are drawn with table cells and text glyphs rather than images or SVG, so they still display when clients block remote images, and they redraw themselves in the plain-text part instead of degrading into numeric lists.
- The documentation provides a complete syntax reference, theming, frontmatter, directives, and API descriptions.
- Provides ready-made templates that can be copied and customized.
- Provides an in-browser live editor for writing and previewing emails.
Usage
- Use render() to render Markdown into email HTML. Note the v0.3.0 migration: render() is now asynchronous, so calls need to change from render(md) to await render(md), and it requires Node 20+ (based on MJML 5).
- Run emailmd --help on the command line to view options.
- In a React project, you can use useEmailmd for live preview, use <EmailPreview /> to embed a preview iframe, and use <EmailmdBuilder /> to integrate the full builder as a component into your own app.
- AI assistants can call render, lint, and read_docs through the MCP server (dev.emailmd/emailmd).
- If you do not use tool calling, you can provide the full documentation to AI tools, because emailmd is just Markdown, and AI is good at writing templates.
Suitable scenarios
Suitable for developers and content authors who need to write emails in Markdown and output stable HTML for a variety of email clients, and also suitable for embedding email editing and preview capabilities in your own React app, or for using AI assistants to help render, check, and preview emails.
Limitations and notes
emailmd is under active development; before 1.0, the API may change between minor versions, and breaking changes will be described in the changelog; see Stability & Versioning for the scope of the semver contract. It is built on MJML. Sponsored by Anypost. Contributions via issue or pull request are welcome.
