Create, Edit, Delete and Activate/Deactivate a Template

Templates are reusable layouts of pre-arranged blocks that help you set up newsletters quickly and keep every edition consistent. You manage them from the Templates area of the Emails page. For the full picture of what you can do with newsletters, see Working in Emails.

Create a template

1. Open Emails and go to Templates.
2. Click Create new template.
3. Drag blocks from the panel into your layout, then click any block to open its settings and adjust it.
4. When the layout is ready, click Preview and schedule to set the default Audience, Title, and Preview text for editions made from this template.
5. Click Activate Template to make it available for use.

You can send yourself a test email before activating to check how the template renders. Keep in mind that email clients ultimately decide how much preview text they display.

If your account has more than one email service provider connected, you can choose which provider a template sends through when you create it. Templates on single-provider accounts use that provider automatically.

Start a template from a newsletter you already send

If you already send a newsletter, you can use it as the starting point for a template instead of building the layout block by block.

1. Save a copy of the newsletter as an email file. In Gmail, open the newsletter, choose More (⋮), then Download message. This saves a .eml file.
2. Open Emails and go to Templates.
3. Click Create new template and choose From an existing newsletter.
4. Drop the file into the window, or click the upload area and choose the file.
5. Click Create template. If your account has more than one email service provider connected, choose the one the template sends through first. For a newsletter sent with Letterhead, you’ll see a summary of the blocks the template will have before you create it. For one sent from another platform, you’ll see a note that AI will lay it out instead, and the dialog tells you its content goes to our AI providers.

Your template is built in the background. You can wait in the window, which closes when the template is ready; click Start another to begin on a different newsletter straight away; or close the window and carry on with something else. While it’s being built, it’s listed under From an existing newsletter in the Create new template menu. When it’s ready, a message lets you know and the template appears in your list. You can build up to five templates at a time.

Letterhead lays the newsletter out as drag and drop blocks (headings, text, images, buttons, dividers, story blocks and two-column rows) and applies its fonts, colors and buttons to the template. Open it from your list to edit it like any other. If the layout can’t be worked out, a message tells you so and the template is added to your list empty: you can build it by hand, try again with the same file, or delete it.

A few things to know:

• Story blocks keep the layout, not the stories. Each edition you make from the template fills them in.
• Some parts are left out on purpose. Ads from other ad services, the “view in browser” line and the footer aren’t copied, because your template has its own view-in-browser line and footer. For a newsletter sent with Letterhead, the summary lists anything that was left out.
• A newsletter sent with Letterhead is read in your browser. It’s never uploaded. One sent from another platform is laid out by AI, which can take a few minutes.
• Replace the sample content before you activate. Images still point to where the original newsletter keeps them, and the text is the copy from the issue you uploaded.
• A newsletter you received directly works best. Forwarding an email can change how it looks, so some styles may not come through.

Tag a template

You can tag company templates to organize your library. Open a template’s configuration screen to add tags — pick from your company’s existing tags or create a new one on the spot. Tags appear in both grid and list views of the template library, and you can filter the library down to templates carrying the tags you choose. The filter stays in place through a reload or a shared link.

Filter and save views of your templates list

Both company and newsletter templates can be filtered by tags, and company templates can also be filtered by status and owner. Once you’ve narrowed the list to the templates you care about, you can save that combination as a named view. Your saved views appear in a dropdown next to Filters, so you can return to one — or to the full list — in one click instead of setting the same filters again on every visit. From the same dropdown you can set a view as your default, rename it, or delete it. Saved views are kept in the browser you saved them in.

Edit a template

Deactivate the template first, make your changes, then reactivate it with Preview and schedule → Activate Template. Editing while a template is live risks an in-progress version going out, so deactivating first is the safe path. Changes affect future sends only — newsletters already scheduled from the template are not affected.

Best practice: duplicate a template before major changes so you keep the original. Letterhead shows when a template was last updated and which team member made the change.

Clone a template

When you clone a company template, a dialog appears with a name already filled in. Edit the name before confirming and the clone is created with your custom name — no renaming afterward.

Activate or deactivate a template

• Activate makes the template available in newsletter creation and automation setup.
• Deactivate hides the template from new sends without affecting newsletters already scheduled from it.

If a deactivated template is used by an active automation, Letterhead warns you; confirming deactivates the associated automation too, so nothing keeps sending from an outdated template. There’s no version history yet — deactivating also works as a way to archive a template you may want later.

Delete a template

Find the template in your templates gallery and delete it. Letterhead shows a confirmation dialog warning that the action can’t be undone and will turn off any connected automations — but there’s no separate step to unlink it first. Deletion goes through immediately, even if an active automation is currently using the template. (A newsletter you’ve already scheduled from the template is its own independent copy by that point, so deleting the template afterward doesn’t touch it.) If an automation was using the template, deleting it automatically switches that automation off, stops any welcome emails running from it, and emails your team to say so.

You can also ask Penpal, Letterhead’s assistant, to do it — open it from the speech-bubble button in the top bar, and ask which templates you have, then tell it which one to delete. That’s often quicker when you’re already in a conversation, with three things worth knowing:

• You won’t get the confirmation dialog. Deleting through Penpal goes ahead rather than stopping to ask first. If an automation was using that template, Letterhead switches that automation off, stops any welcome emails running from it, and emails your team to say so.
• Check the name before you confirm. If your wording could match more than one template, Penpal will ask which you mean — worth answering carefully, because deleting a template isn’t something you can undo yourself.
• You’ll need company-level access. If your account is limited to particular channels, Penpal will tell you it can’t remove the template rather than doing it.

Asking Penpal to delete a template is still rolling out, so you may not see it on your account yet.

FAQs

Can I edit a template used in an automation? Yes — deactivate, edit, reactivate. Changes affect future sends only.

Can I share templates across automations or segments? Yes. Templates aren’t locked to a specific automation or segment.

Next steps

Ready to send? See How do I create and schedule a newsletter from a template?