Videos can play directly in emails, but the technique is not widely supported.
Support for embedded video
Not all email clients support embedded video. In these cases, the subscriber will see a fallback image and a link directing them to watch the video on your website, YouTube, or Vimeo. iPhone’s running iOS 10+ do support video in email. However, predecessors iOS 8 and iOS 9 do not support it (the video and the fallback link don’t work either). Apple Mail also supports it.
| EMAIL CLIENT | SHOWS VIDEO | SHOWS IMAGE |
| Apple Mail | Yes on desktop and iPhones running iOS 10+. Not on iPhones running iOS 8+ (see note above) | |
| Lotus Notes | Yes | |
| Outlook (PC) | Yes | |
| Outlook (Mac) | Yes* | |
| Thunderbird | Yes * | |
| AOL Mail | Yes | |
| Gmail | Yes | |
| Hotmail | Yes* | Yes** |
| Yahoo Mail | Yes | |
| Android | Yes | |
| Blackberry | Yes | |
| iPhone, iPad | Yes |
*requires right-click to play
**Older browsers show the fallback image
Hosting your video
Videos must be hosted in a publicly accessible folder. For example, you can host your video on your website or in a hosting service that allows public access to video files outside a media player. This is important to note because services such as Dropbox and Google Drive utilize their own player to avoid hosting video files for HTML (websites or emails). WordFly's media library cannot host video files.
Video versions
It’s important to upload the correct video format that is requested in the video embed tool. Do not add video links to YouTube, Vimeo, or other video hosting sites for your mp4 and other video versions.
Video format support
| BROWSER | MP4 | OGG/OGV/THEORA | WEBM |
| Android | Yes | ||
| Chrome | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Edge | Yes | ||
| Firefox | Yes | ||
| iOS | Yes | ||
| Opera | Yes | ||
| Safari | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Add an embedded video to your design
Follow these steps to add an embedded video and appropriate fallbacks in your design.
1. Add a Video block to the right panel
2. In the left panel, switch to Embedded
3. Add your embedded video links and poster/fallback images
Type in the URLs for the various formats. You don’t need to create all three versions of your video but you’ll get the best support if you do.
| MP4 | At a minimum, include an `MP4` file because it has the best cross-platform/client support. |
| OGG, WebM | `OGG` and `WebM` files are optional. They can be included as fallbacks if `MP4` isn't supported. |
| Poster image | Displays for email clients and browsers that support embedded video. If a poster image isn’t selected, the first frame of the video will be used as a poster. |
| Fallback image | Displays when for email clients and browsers that do not support embedded video. Upload the same image as your poster image or make a separate image for this element. |
Tip: If you paste in the full YouTube or Vimeo link, the editor will automatically add your video thumbnail and alt text. (The shortened “share” link will not work.)
4. Click Save