Child Item

Fix Dropbox email formatting for Outlook or web browser

Emails sent by Dropbox do not display properly in the Outlook desktop app. They are completely blank. Choosing to open them in a web browser (Edge) from the option in Outlook displays some of the text, but it's clear it's not valid HTML, so it doesn't display things properly there, either. Lots of information still appears to be missing.

I've reached out to support to try to notify the proper people who are building these emails, but support has basically said not our problem and directed me here to "share your suggestion with our development team."

I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but I know that emails from Dropbox are unreadable in the Outlook desktop app and viewing them in the browser doesn't help. Something about the formatting of the emails is awry. Would love if you'd fix this serious bug. Thanks!

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Comments

Mark

I use Outlook at have no issues at all with things displaying as they should - also I imagine this place would be overrun with comments if it was a widespread issue (as Outlook is one of the most common clients around, especially for corporate users).

Can you post some example screenshots? Especially if it is also not working in Edge as they are two separate things and makes me wonder if your internet/settings are blocking things.

ldorothy

Looks pretty broken in both to me. Simple marketing email from Dropbox.

In Outlook:

Select "view in browser" option to see this in Edge:

Basically, that's not valid HTML in the email body.

Jay

Hi @ldorothy, thanks for the image.

Are you currently viewing this from your personal machine, or a company-managed device?

Do you have any proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router settings that could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains?

Any extra information you can provide would be helpful!

ldorothy

All of these factors are unrelated to the email body content having non-HTML "links". I'm amazed that content shows up in any mail client or browser. That said, here's your info:

It's a company machine, on which I have an administrative account. No proxy or VPN. I don't know what the firewall or security settings are on the network. Only things running locally are Windows Firewall, with default settings. It's not about the traffic to Dropbox domains being restricted, anyway. I can take this laptop home, and experience the exact same behavior. I can use Dropbox on this machine without issue. I can visit dropbox.com and it's fine.

The formatting of Dropbox's marketing emails is broken in some way that causes it not to render properly.

Mark

ldorothy wrote:
The formatting of Dropbox's marketing emails is broken in some way that causes it not to render properly.

But, only for you it seems at present.

I got that email and it formatted perfectly fine.

I'm pretty certain there is something on your machine/network which is causing the files to not render correctly - especially as nobody else, at all, has commented on here. And believe me, this place gets overrun when things like this do happen.

Jay

We appreciate the feedback on this matter. Currently, we're unable to reproduce the same behavior you're experiencing.

As it is a third party app, we wouldn't be able to provide further insight into how or why this might be occurring.

We'll be on the lookout for any other reports from other users experiencing this behavior.

ldorothy

No problem. Was just trying to do your Marketing team a solid so everyone can read their emails. There are compatibility tools out there for building emails to ensure they work in all apps.