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Importing and converting a design

Importing an email you already have

Import reads a template file written somewhere else and tells you everything it found; nothing is repaired. A file that cannot be read is refused, and one that can is saved with its findings, which you fix before it can be sent.

Import

Import takes a template file written somewhere else — by your own tools, or handed to you — reads it, and tells you everything it found. Nothing is repaired. A template that has been mended without you knowing is a template you did not write, going to the people on your list.

There are two different outcomes, and the difference matters:

That second outcome surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly: an imported email can save with problems in it, on purpose. It is your work and we keep it. It simply cannot be scheduled or sent until the problems are gone.

A block of pasted HTML

An email can carry a block of HTML you were handed or wrote yourself — or had an assistant write for you — kept as markup rather than converted into blocks. It is read on the way in, and in most mail apps it sends as it was designed: the way it is laid out and set, its colors and background colors, and its own style rules. Some mail apps throw style rules away — the Gmail app reading an address that is not a Gmail address is one — and there it can look plainer. For a design you imported, converting it (below) carries its look in its own blocks.

Its style rules are kept, fenced in. Its style rules — how the columns stack on mobile, a larger heading on a small screen, a line that is only there for one size of screen, links without an underline — are kept and sent at the top of the email. Each rule can only reach inside that one block: it can never change your footer, your unsubscribe link or your store's address, which are always outside it. A rule written to reach past the block (for example one that starts from the page and steps to what comes after it) is removed, and the block says so. Rules that load a font or another style sheet from somewhere else are removed too.

Background images are kept when they are in your images and media, exactly the way an image is: a background image served from another website is removed, and the block says so. Add the image to your images and media and use its address. (A design you import from another email service has its background images copied for you.) Outlook for Windows does not show background images, so it shows the background color behind them instead — give a section with an image behind its words a color that suits it.

Class names are kept, so the rules can find what they style. The few that begin with carpe are ours, and are removed from pasted markup.

It fits inside its column. Nothing in the block can make your email wider than a mobile screen, so anything wider than the column it sits in has its right side cut. The usual case is a table set to 600px wide in a section with padding: the column is narrower than 600px. The block tells you when this will happen, and names the width that fits. Make that part narrower, or give the section less padding.

Your colors are kept — the color of the words and a background color set behind them, exactly as they are written. A block of pasted markup that names no color of its own draws in your email's own colors instead.

One thing to know about the dark. A color written inside pasted markup is out of reach of everything your template does afterwards, so it stays exactly as you wrote it — including for somebody reading at night, when the section around it turns dark. Dark gray words you pasted stay dark gray on a near-black background, and a pale panel you pasted keeps its fill while everything around it goes dark. Your email's own colors are ones your template can hand over to its dark colors. Pasted ones are not, and there is no way for us to reach in and correct them. Words you pasted without a color of their own follow your dark text color — unless the block draws a background of its own anywhere (a background color, a background image, or a style rule that sets one — a see-through one, like transparent or none, does not count). Then those words keep your light text color in a dark inbox too, so they stay readable on the light background you drew.

So it is your choice to make, and you have two ways to make it. Keep the colors you pasted, and they draw as you chose them in every inbox. Or write those words as an ordinary text block instead, where the color belongs to your template: you choose it, it draws as you chose it, and it gives way to your dark text color for somebody reading in the dark.

Old marketing HTML

Old marketing HTML routinely carries things an email may not: scripts, style rules that would reach outside their block, images and fonts loaded from somewhere else. Those are removed on the way in, and the converted template keeps no record of what was taken out. If anything was removed from yours, we will have told you which ones — you should not have to find out by noticing the email looks different.

Convert an imported design to the Carpe Messaging format

A design imported from another email service arrives as one piece of HTML you can send but not edit. Open it and press Preview the conversion to see it turned into blocks; nothing is saved until you press Keep this. Convert before you send: a converted design keeps its look in more mail apps.

A design you imported from another email service arrives as one piece of HTML. You can send it, and you can see it — but you cannot edit it here, the way you edit the emails you build yourself. There is no text block to type in, no image to swap, no product row to point at a different collection.

Converting it turns that one piece into blocks. Open the design and the offer is the first card in the column beside it: Convert to Carpe Messaging format. Press Preview the conversion and nothing is saved — you get a window with the design as it was imported on the left, and what it would become on the right. The converted side is drawn for the person Showing as names in the editor and, when you chose one, from their Event — so an order number or a tracking number shows that order's, as the editor's own preview does.

The review is a preview. The left side is your design as it was imported; the right side shows what converting will make of it. The converted design can differ a little from the preview, and from the original. That's expected: converting gets your design into blocks you can edit, and from there you can adjust spacing, sizes and colors to taste.

For best results, convert before you send. A design that is not converted sends as one block of HTML code, and much of its look — sizes, colors, the boxes around things — rides in style rules that some mail apps throw away, such as the Gmail app reading an address that is not a Gmail address. There it can look plainer than you designed it. A converted design carries its look in its own blocks, so it holds in those apps too, and you can edit it here.

Three bars beside the converted side

Every part of the converted design has a bar beside it, in the margin to its left, so nothing is drawn over your words. There are only three things a bar can mean, and each has its own pattern as well as its own color. Point at a bar — or move to it with the Tab key — to see its name, and the part it belongs to is outlined while you do.

The converted design is drawn for one person: whoever Showing as names in the editor, or the sample profile when nobody is chosen. So a part your original showed only to some people — a greeting with a first name, and the one without — appears once, as that person would get it, not twice. When a part is not shown to them, the line at the top of the window says how many.

The menu at the top of a template — your logo over a row of links — becomes an image and one centered line of links, in the menu's own color and size, that you can edit like any other words. Two things look different: the links are underlined, as every link in your words is until you change it under How links look (in the chapter Colors, backgrounds and spacing); and on mobile, a menu whose links stacked one under another wraps them onto a second line instead. The space between the letters of the menu is not carried, and a weight between plain and bold becomes the nearer of the two. A menu word with no link yet stays a word in the line; an image in the row goes above the line (or below it, when it came after the last word), no wider than its share of the row.

A part drawn twice — once for desktop, once for mobile — is one part: the desktop one, which stacks itself on mobile, so a menu may show on mobile a link it once showed only on desktop. That happens only when the mobile copy's words are found in a desktop copy (a slightly shorter wording counts) and every image and link of it is too; otherwise the part is kept as code, both copies with it.

Things the other service put in as placeholders. Its starting templates fill in things for you to replace. A row of its social icons that link nowhere becomes a social block whose icons use your store's own social links — the ones saved in Settings → Store — in the same white, black or colored set; an icon for a network your store has no link for is not shown, and the email’s checks say which. When your store has no link saved for any of the row's networks, the row is excluded with the line introducing it ("Follow us"), and what changed says so. Its email icon, which names no network, is excluded. Its badge at the foot of the email is removed. A button with no link yet, or one pointing at a placeholder address (the other service's own home page, or an address that names no website, such as http:///), now goes to your store's home page, and so do words that pointed at such an address; words with no link at all stay words. An image or a menu word that pointed at a placeholder keeps no link, and what changed names each one — the image by its description, the menu word by its words — so you can choose where it goes in the editor.

A button stretched across its column is a full-width button, the same Full width you can choose on any button, with the room beside it that its column gave it, so it lines up with the words above it.

Every phone number becomes your store's phone number. A link to a phone number calls the number saved in Settings → Store, and the number in its words becomes your store's phone words — only the number: "Call us at" in front of it, or "today" after it, stays as written — so a new number reaches every converted email; the number the template was written with is never kept, and the same number written again as plain words becomes your store's phone words too. A number is picked out only when it is written as a whole phone number — a North American one such as 877-555-0198, (877) 555-0198 or 877-WICKS-98, or + and an international number — and never across a line break, so "24 hours" or "(Mon–Fri)" after it stays as written. Words with a number we cannot pick out of them stay as written, and what changed names them, as it names an image on such a link whose description names a number. With no number saved yet, each number in the design is a question for you to answer, and nothing calls it — and so are the words of a link to a phone number with no number in them ("Call us!"): add the number in Settings → Store (an owner or a manager can) and convert the design again, or answer what should stand there. Convert all leaves such a design as it is. An image or a menu word that called a number keeps no link until then, named in what changed.

A link that applied the other service's discount code — an address ending in /discount/ and the code, or a page with ?discount= and the code — is a link to Your discount: it opens your store with each person's own code already applied. It needs a discount block in the email with the discount chosen, the same as the Discount code field the original's code became, and what changed names the discount it stood for; until that block is in, the email cannot go out. Until the block has its discount chosen, a button linked to Your discount is not shown, in the preview or anywhere else, because a button that goes nowhere is never drawn — it is still in the email, and what changed names it. Words and images linked to it show without their link meanwhile. Where it lands is the discount block's Where it goes, so when the original opened a page other than a front page, what changed names that page — the whole address, web address included — for you to choose there. A campaign or a saved design gives one discount away, so if the original named different discounts — in its links, or printed as its code — every one of them now gives the same code; what changed says so, and Convert templates leaves that design for you to read. An automation's email and a back-in-stock email give none, so this is never said there; what is said there is below.

The original's code anywhere else in an address — in a page's path, or under another name — is not a discount link: the address is removed, what changed says what stays, and Convert templates leaves that design for you to read.

In a back-in-stock email that link keeps its words and links nowhere: it cannot give a discount away. What changed names it, you choose where it goes, and Convert templates leaves that design for you to read. An image with that link keeps no link, for you to choose one — or, not in your images and media, is removed with it, and what changed says so. A button with that link is kept as code, with the same note. Where the original's code also shows as words — the Discount code — what changed says to take it out, because a back-in-stock email would show nothing there. Convert templates leaves that design for you to read too. An automation's email keeps that link as Your discount, the same as a campaign's.

A plain note — lines of words with no layout of their own — is converted to blocks, keeping its blank lines and its bullets, with the same space around it it had as code. A note that sets columns, a box, a background image, text for phones only, or a style the rest of the email reads is kept as code, as before.

A line drawn around several paragraphs — a box around an offer and the date it ends — is not carried: a line goes around one block of words only, so the paragraphs are drawn without it, and what changed names it by its first words.

A link to your cart ({{ organization.url }}/cart) is a link to your store's Cart, built from your store's web address, so a new web address reaches it — except in a campaign already scheduled, which keeps the address it had when it was scheduled. A link to any other page written that way uses your store's web address as it is today.

The questions

Under the converted design are the questions you have to answer — only when there are any. A design with nothing to ask shows the converted email on its own, the full height of the window.

What changed while we read your design, and what was kept as code, are behind the Review changes button beside the word Converted — it says how many there are, as in Review 7 changes. Press it and they open in place of the original, beside the converted design they describe, and the button reads Hide changes; press it again, the ×, or Escape, and the original comes back. A change that loses something of yours — a word, a link, a part of your product card — is listed first, under Check these before you keep this. The button counts those even while it is closed, and so does the line beside Keep this, so you never keep a design without knowing.

Each question shows the tag exactly as it was written and asks you one thing. There are four answers and you choose one:

Change an answer and the right-hand side is drawn again, so you never have to take an answer on trust. Keep this stays unavailable until every question has an answer. Discard is always there and costs nothing — until you press Keep this, nothing has been saved.

After you keep it

The design becomes blocks, and the one you had is kept as a version, saved the moment before the conversion. A green note at the top of the editor says so, with an Open Versions button, and it stays until you close it. The version is in the Versions list with a Restore button beside it, like every other version, so you can go back whenever you like.

A converted design that still carries another service's tags cannot be sent — the checks say which, and replacing them is ordinary editing now.

Order and shipping emails

An order or shipping email from another email service is mostly details from the order — the carrier, the tracking number, the address it ships to — and sections that only some shoppers see. Converting keeps all of it:

These details come from the start event, so the email works in an automation that starts from your store's own order or shipment event — Fulfilled Order, Partially Fulfilled, Out for Delivery, Delivered Shipment and the others. The tracking button follows the start event's link only when that event comes from your store; an automation that can also be started by your website or by an outside connection opens your store's home page instead. For an automation imported before September 29, 2026, open its Start card before you enable it: if the card does not read "· From your store" — even when the event's name already matches your store's — press Change and pick your store's event again. An automation's own email converts too: it is converted from the design it was copied from.

Rules about a person, and otherwise

The other service's "if this, show that" tags become Show this only when … rules wherever the rule means exactly the same thing here:

Buttons and images that pointed somewhere personal keep their link: to the checkout the person left (Return to checkout), to your store's home page, to the page of the event that started the automation, or to the unsubscribe link. One that went somewhere this app cannot send to — a review page from another app, say — is kept as code on its own, and the rest of the email converts. A link to the page of the event — the product someone viewed, say — cannot be sent from an automation started on your website (a viewed product or an added-to-cart), because anyone can send that event; the conversion says so, and you choose another destination there before it goes live.

The other service's tag for the current year becomes the Current year field, and an emoji set in a color of its own no longer keeps its paragraph as code: an emoji is drawn in its own colors anyway.

A greeting written two ways becomes one line. "Hi Name!" for people you have a first name for and "Hi again!" for the rest is the same sentence with one word in the name's place — so it becomes Hi First name! with again as the first name's fallback, and reads exactly as it did for both. When the other version has no word in the name's place ("Hello again, Name!" and "Hello again!"), no word is made up: the line becomes two lines, Show this only when the first name is known and when it is not, each exactly as it was. When the old design wrote the two versions in pieces of their own, so each one starts or ends a style the other does not, the whole paragraph is written twice the same way — each copy exactly what that person saw. The one exception is a version that leaves bold, italics or a link running on past its paragraph: two paragraphs cannot say that, so that part stays as code.

The product the email is about becomes a product block. A browse, added-to-cart or back-in-stock email draws the product that started it — its image, its name and its price, each linked to its page. That card becomes a product block over the event that started the automation, so the image and the name (with the shade, when it has one) come from your store when the email goes out, and so does the price where the card printed one. It links to the product only where the card linked both its image and its name. A button that went to that product's page becomes the block's own button, in its words and its colors — when nothing but empty space stands between it and the card; a button under words of your own stays where it was. The name and the price keep the size, color and font the card gave them, but not bold, italics or underline, and the note says so. The card's "Price:" label is not carried; the block prints the price. A product block always draws the product's image and its name, and links both or neither: where the old card showed only one of them, or linked only one, the note says what changed. Convert templates does not convert a template like that on its own: it lists it with that note under Needs your answers, so you read what changes and convert it from its own page. A card that also carries words or an image of its own is left as it was.

A product name inside a sentence stays in the sentence. It becomes the product's name from the event that started the automation — the product somebody looked at, put in their cart, ordered, or asked to hear about when it is back in stock — and no product block is added under it. An automation started by a placed order or a started checkout has no one product, so there the name prints its fallback. When the old design looked the name up in its own catalog, which is how a back-in-stock email names the product with its shade, the template asks you what to write there. A price inside a sentence is asked about the same way.

A product block whose products were never chosen is filled with your Best sellers. The old design's product block printed nothing until its products were chosen; it is filled with Best sellers, with as many products as it had, and the note asks you to choose which products it shows.

A part the old design was set never to show — wrapped in a comparison that is never true, such as if 1 is 0 — is removed, and one wrapped in a comparison that is always true simply shows.

Code that changes nothing is removed. Some older designs carry template code that does nothing: a wrapper that sets up a value nothing inside it uses, or an "if this, show that" whose every part — the otherwise part among them — shows exactly the same thing. Importing or converting the design removes that code and keeps what it wrapped, so each person sees exactly what they saw before, and the part converts like any other instead of being kept as code or asked about. The conversion's notes say when this happened. An "if" with no otherwise part is never removed this way: it shows its part to only some people.

What still is not converted, and stays as code with its reason: any other rule on a person's first name (no rule can test a name — write the line so it reads well either way, using the first name's fallback), a rule that only asks whether a property is there at all, an otherwise beside a comparison of numbers, and mixed with or, a rule inside another rule, a rule around your unsubscribe link or your address, arithmetic and date formatting, and a list over anything but the order's items. A detail we do not recognize is never guessed: it becomes a question for you.

Convert all your imported templates

You do not have to convert your imported templates one at a time. After an import, Settings → Imports has a step called Turn your imported email templates into editable Carpe Messaging templates, with one button, Convert templates. (While nothing has been converted yet, the Templates screen has one quiet line pointing there.) It does exactly what converting one template does, once for each of them — and for the emails in your automations that were made from an imported template — so everything above holds for every one:

The emails in your automations that were made from an imported template. An automation's send step has its own copy of the template it uses, with the automation's subject line — in an automation you imported, and in one you built here from an imported template. Each copy is converted from that template's original, and keeps its subject line. The same rules hold: one you changed is left alone, and so is one copied from a template you had already changed. Nothing an automation sends changes — it keeps sending the version it had until you open it and press Apply changes. An email in an archived automation is not converted. While the step is converting an automation's emails, Apply changes on that automation waits: it says the templates are being converted and asks you to try again in a few minutes. Once converting is done, Apply changes sends the converted email, so open that step and look at it first.

It runs in the background, once. Press Convert templates, read what it will do, and confirm. The step shows Converting 120 of 473… while it works, and you can leave the page and come back. When it is done the button is gone and the step keeps the result. It starts with one sentence — 412 of your 472 templates are now editable here — counting your automations' emails in, then says what happened to the rest, each in a sentence of its own:

Press a line to see its templates. Each is linked: a template to its own page, an automation's email to its automation, opened at that step. The card ends with What to do next: answer the templates waiting for you first, then open each automation that uses one of these emails and press Apply changes to start sending the converted email. Nothing an automation sends changes until then. Nothing it went through is offered again. The button comes back for anything no run has gone through: templates a later import brings, whatever a run that stopped part-way never reached, and an automation email you build later from an imported template that was never converted. The result lists what every run did, not only the latest. Anyone who can edit templates can press it. The step stays on the page after you disconnect, for as long as imported templates are left to convert or there is a result to show.

Show on the Templates screen still offers two views at any time: Has parts kept as code lists every converted template with a part kept as code — including ones you converted on their own page — and Needs your answers lists every template the step left for you.

When the original is not on file

Converting reads the copy of your design exactly as it arrived. If we do not have that copy, the card says so and points you at the import. Import the design again and the copy comes with it.