Gmail gets responsive design so emails stop looking a mess on your phone

Ever start to read an email on your desktop, only to pick it up on your phone later and find the formatting is all kinds of messed up? Thankfully, that will soon be largely a thing of the past.

Google says that later this month, Gmail will be able to support emails created with responsive design, which basically translates to Web content looking decent no matter what device you’re reading it on.

All this means that like most modern sites – including our own – text, links, and buttons will rearrange and resize themselves to make it easier to read content or tap buttons. If you want to see responsive design at work, just change the width of the very browser window you’re reading this post on (if you’re on a desktop).

It goes the other way around too. Although it’s less likely to be a problem, emails designed for mobile will look better on the desktop.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean every email you’ve ever been sent will look nice on mobile, nor does it affect the plain text emails you’re sending your coworkers; it only applies to emails designed to look more like mini webpages, which must now be created with responsive design in mind.

Still, finally adding proper support in Gmail means you can expect this to become the norm in due time. Email designers can check out a separate Google blog post for more information about how to assure responsive design compatibility.