explaingit

mailgun/transactional-email-templates

★ 6,937HTMLAudience · developerComplexity · 1/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

Three ready-to-use HTML email templates from Mailgun for common app emails, password resets, billing receipts, and alert notifications, designed to display correctly across all major email clients.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Email Templates))
    What it does
      Ready-made HTML emails
      Cross-client compatible
      Responsive layout
    Template types
      Action button email
      Alert notification
      Billing receipt
    Technical notes
      CSS must be inlined
      Pre-inlined versions included
      Tables for layout
    Use cases
      Password reset
      Invoices
      Error alerts
Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Use the action template as a starting point for password reset or email confirmation emails in your web app.

USE CASE 2

Use the billing template to send invoice or receipt emails to customers after a purchase.

USE CASE 3

Use the alert template to notify users of warnings, errors, or important account activity via email.

USE CASE 4

Customize the pre-inlined templates as a base for branded transactional emails without worrying about email client compatibility.

Tech stack

HTMLCSS

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Use the pre-inlined templates in the subfolder directly, no extra tooling needed to preview or send.

Open source, free to use, modify, and include in any project, commercial or otherwise.

In plain English

This repository from Mailgun provides a small set of ready-made HTML email templates for common transactional messages. Transactional emails are the automatic messages an application sends to its users, such as welcome emails, password reset links, billing receipts, monthly invoices, error alerts, and support confirmations. Writing HTML for email is notoriously difficult. Email clients like Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, and various mobile apps each render HTML differently from web browsers, and many CSS features that work perfectly on a webpage do not work in an email. The templates here are designed to handle those inconsistencies, using tables and inline styles where needed so the layout holds up across the major email clients. The maintainers tested them using a cross-client testing service. The collection includes three templates: an action email (for prompting the user to click a button), an alert email (for sending a warning or notification), and a billing email (for receipts and invoices). Each template is responsive, meaning it adjusts its layout for both desktop and mobile screens. Before sending any HTML email, the CSS needs to be inlined, which means moving styles from a separate stylesheet directly onto each HTML element. The README points to a tool called Premailer for this step. The repository also includes pre-inlined versions of the templates in a subfolder so you can preview the final output without running any extra tools. The templates are open source and can be used as-is or treated as starting points for more customized email designs.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I need a password reset email for my SaaS app. Adapt the Mailgun action email template to include my app name, a reset button, and a note that the link expires in 24 hours.
Prompt 2
Customize the Mailgun billing email template for a monthly subscription receipt that shows plan name, billing date, amount, and a link to the customer portal.
Prompt 3
I want to send an alert email when a user's API key is about to expire. Adapt the Mailgun alert template with a warning message and a link to renew the key.
Prompt 4
Explain how to inline CSS into the Mailgun HTML email templates using Premailer so the emails render correctly in Outlook and Gmail.
Prompt 5
Write a Node.js snippet that loads the pre-inlined action email template, replaces the placeholder text with dynamic values, and sends it via the Mailgun API.
Open on GitHub → Explain another repo

← mailgun on gitmyhub — every repo by this author, as a profile.

Verify against the repo before relying on details.