Paste anything. Render everything.

Preview raw email source — instantly, in your browser

Paste Gmail's "Show original" output, a .eml file, quoted-printable body, base64 content, or JSON from an ESP API. EmailQA auto-detects the format and renders the email exactly as your subscribers see it — no manual decoding, no command-line tools.

No credit card required

What raw email source looks like — and what it should look like

Pasting raw email source into any other preview tool gives you gibberish. Here's what the same content looks like in EmailQA vs. a standard preview.

Other preview tools — raw paste
Content-Type: text/html; charset=3DUTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body style=3D"margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<h1 style=3D"color: #ff6=
600;">Welcome=E2=80=87back!</h1>
<p>Your order =E2=80=94 =
ready to ship.</p>
</body>
</html>

Rendered literally. Users see =3D, =E2=80=87, broken line wraps — and the preview is unusable.

EmailQA — auto-decoded

Welcome back!

Your order — ready to ship.

Detected: quoted-printable email source

Decoded, rendered, and ready for testing. A toast confirms which format was detected.

Seven email source formats, one paste

EmailQA detects the format automatically. Clean HTML falls through untouched. Everything else gets decoded before render.

Quoted-printable (QP)

The default encoding for most ESP-sent emails. Full of =3D, =E2=80=87 sequences and soft line breaks.

<h1 style=3D"color: #ff6=
600;">Welcome=E2=80=87back</h1>

Common source: Gmail "Show original", Klaviyo source, any MIME body

Raw .eml / MIME messages

Entire email file including headers (From, To, Subject, Content-Type) and multipart bodies. EmailQA parses the message and extracts the HTML part.

From: [email protected]
Subject: Welcome
Content-Type: text/html

<html>...</html>

Common source: Exported .eml from Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook

JSON-wrapped HTML

HTML returned by ESP APIs or webhooks as a JSON string. EmailQA finds the html / body / content field automatically.

{"html": "<html>...</html>", "subject": "Welcome"}

Common source: Klaviyo API, Mailchimp render API, webhook payloads

Base64-encoded bodies

Long blocks of A–Z, a–z, 0–9 and =. Common inside MIME when 8-bit encoding isn't available.

PGh0bWw+PGJvZHk+SGVsbG8gd29ybGQ8L2JvZHk+PC9odG1sPg==

Common source: Multipart MIME attachments, some ESP exports

HTML-entity-escaped

HTML where every tag is escaped as &lt;div&gt; instead of <div>. Looks like raw angle-bracket gibberish in any browser.

&lt;h1&gt;Welcome&lt;/h1&gt;&lt;p&gt;Your order is ready.&lt;/p&gt;

Common source: Source pulled from inside a textarea, copy/paste from inspectors

URL-encoded

HTML where spaces, tags and special characters are replaced with %20, %3C, %3E percent escapes.

%3Chtml%3E%3Cbody%3EHello%20world%3C%2Fbody%3E%3C%2Fhtml%3E

Common source: Query strings, some webhook debug tools, copied URLs

How it works

STEP 1

Paste the source

Drop in raw .eml contents, Gmail "Show original" output, JSON responses, or any HTML-like text. No format-picking required.

STEP 2

Auto-detection runs

Detectors run in order of specificity — MIME headers, JSON wrappers, entity escapes, URL encoding, base64, and quoted-printable — and decode the source in one pass.

STEP 3

Preview the decoded email

You see the email exactly as a subscriber would. From there, run real-device rendering, share a preview link, or leave pin-based comments.

Who needs raw email source preview

If your job involves looking at email source for any reason, this saves you the manual decode step.

Debug emails pulled from Gmail "Show original"

Gmail's "Show original" dumps the full MIME source with quoted-printable encoding. Paste it directly — no manual decoding step.

Review what your ESP actually sent

Klaviyo, Mailchimp and HubSpot often transform your template at send time (merge tags, tracking pixels, link rewriting). Preview the actual delivered HTML, not just the source in your builder.

Inspect bounced or quarantined messages

Deliverability tools return the raw message. EmailQA renders it so you can see what the spam filter or recipient would have seen.

Test ESP-generated code after merge fields resolve

Template variables like {{first_name}} only resolve in production. Paste a real send's source to see the final rendered output.

Pull HTML out of API / webhook responses

Klaviyo's render API returns JSON with an html field. EmailQA detects the wrapper and extracts the HTML automatically.

Audit emails from legal, compliance or support queues

Forwarded .eml files from support tickets or compliance reviews render instantly. No command-line mime-parsing tools required.

Most email tools expect clean HTML only

Litmus, Email on Acid, and Stripo all require pre-decoded HTML input. If you have anything else, you need to run it through a decoder first. EmailQA skips that step.

Capability
EmailQA
Litmus
Email on Acid
Auto-detect MIME / .eml files
Decode quoted-printable automatically
Parse JSON-wrapped HTML from APIs
Decode base64-encoded bodies
Decode HTML-entity-escaped source
Paste Gmail "Show original" directly

Other tools can absolutely preview clean HTML — they just don't auto-decode raw email source. Based on documented feature sets as of 2026.

Email source preview FAQ

Why does my pasted email look like gibberish in most preview tools?

Most email preview tools only accept clean HTML. When you paste raw email source — like the output of Gmail's "Show original" — it contains quoted-printable encoding (=3D, =E2=80=87), MIME headers, or base64 bodies that a browser renders literally instead of decoding. EmailQA detects the format automatically and decodes it before rendering, so you always see the final email instead of the raw source.

What is quoted-printable encoding and why is it in my email?

Quoted-printable (QP) is a MIME encoding that represents 8-bit characters using =XX hex sequences and breaks long lines with =\r\n soft wraps. It's the default encoding for most email service providers because it keeps emails compatible with older mail servers that only handle 7-bit ASCII. If your email includes any non-ASCII characters (em dashes, emoji, smart quotes, accented letters), it will almost certainly be quoted-printable encoded by the time it hits a recipient.

Can I paste .eml files directly?

Yes. Paste the full contents of a .eml file — headers and all — and EmailQA parses it as a MIME message, extracts the HTML part (falling back to plain text if no HTML is present), and renders it. You don't need to manually strip headers or identify the body.

What email source formats does EmailQA detect?

EmailQA auto-detects and decodes seven formats: plain HTML, quoted-printable, base64, raw MIME / .eml messages, JSON-wrapped HTML (common in ESP APIs), HTML-entity-escaped content, and URL-encoded content. Detection runs in order of specificity — strong signals like MIME headers or dense =XX escapes are checked first, so clean HTML never triggers a false-positive decode.

Does this work with Klaviyo's source output?

Yes. Klaviyo's rendered email source is quoted-printable encoded, which EmailQA decodes automatically. If you're pulling HTML from the Klaviyo render API, the response is JSON-wrapped — EmailQA handles that too by extracting the html field before rendering.

Does this work with Gmail's "Show original" output?

Yes. "Show original" returns the full raw MIME message — headers, multipart boundaries, quoted-printable body. Paste the entire output directly into EmailQA and it will parse the MIME structure, find the HTML part, and decode the quoted-printable body in one step.

Is it safe to paste email source with tracking pixels?

EmailQA renders emails in a sandboxed preview environment that does not fire tracking pixels, send click events, or resolve unsubscribe links during preview. The source is stored privately in your project and is only visible to you and people you explicitly share a preview link with.

What happens if the source is already plain HTML?

Nothing extra — EmailQA checks for strong format signals before attempting to decode. Clean HTML falls through all the detectors and renders normally, so there's no risk of a detector incorrectly decoding a valid HTML email.

Can I see which format was detected?

Yes. After you paste, EmailQA surfaces a toast notification telling you which format was detected and decoded — for example "Detected quoted-printable email source — decoded automatically." This confirms the decode happened and helps you verify the right format was picked.

Can I test the decoded email across real devices after?

Yes. Once your email source is decoded and rendered, you can trigger real-device rendering across Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail in Light and Dark Mode — all the standard EmailQA testing tools work on the decoded email just like they would on any HTML you upload directly.

Stop decoding email source by hand

Paste anything — .eml, quoted-printable, JSON, base64 — and get a rendered preview in one step. Free to try, no credit card required.

Works on every plan. Pro plan adds real-device rendering.