Edit Your Email's Subject Line, Preview Text, From Name, or From Email Address

When you send an email, your recipients see the subject line, preview text, From name, and From email address first. It's important for these details to be recognizable and consistent, so recipients are more likely to open your emails. When and how you edit this information depends on the type of email you're working with.

In this article, you'll learn how to edit your subject line, preview text, From name, or From email address in different types of emails.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• Before you edit your subject line or preview text, you may want to learn more about each setting. For some guidance, read Best Practices for Email Subject Lines.
• If you regularly use the same From name or From email address when you send to a specific audience, you can set them as defaults to improve consistency and save time. To learn how, check out Change Audience Name and Defaults.
• If your From email address comes from a free email service, it may cause delivery problems. To ensure delivery, we'll make a small change to your email address by adding an extension to it. To learn more, read our article on how free email providers affect delivery.

Edit a regular email

You can edit any part of a regular email while it’s in draft status. You’ll edit the From name and From email address in the From section of the email builder, and the subject line and preview text in the Subject section. After you send, you won’t be able to change these details.

To edit the From name, From email address, subject line, or preview text of a regular email, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns, then click All campaigns.
2. Click the name of the draft email you want to work with.
3. In the From section, click Add From or Edit From.
4. Enter the name and email address you want to use, and click Save.
   
   You may be asked to verify your email domain. To find out why, check out Verify a Domain.
5. In the Subject section, click Add Subject or Edit Subject.
6. Enter the Subject and Preview text you want to use, and click Save.
   

Edit a customer journey email

To edit a draft customer journey email, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the customer journey you want to work with.
2. Click the email to open the Send email pop-up modal.
3. Click the Edit links to change To & From, Subject, or Schedule. You'll have the option to edit Tracking if your Mailchimp account is connected to your Google Analytics account.
4. Click Save for each section.
5. When you're finished, click Close on the Email send pop-up.

Edit a classic automation

Classic Automations are only available to accounts that have previously created a classic automation. To edit the subject line, preview text, From From name, or From email address for a specific email in a classic automation, check out the Edit Settings section in the Create a Classic Automation article.

Edit an RSS campaign

RSS campaigns are available only in the classic builder. To edit the subject line, preview text, From name, or From email address for an RSS campaign, follow these steps.

1. Click Campaigns, then click All campaigns.
2. If your RSS campaign hasn’t started, click Edit for the campaign you want to work with.

To edit an RSS campaign that has already started, you'll first need to pause it.

1. Navigate to the Setup step and make your changes.
2. Navigate to the Confirm step, then click Start RSS.
3. In the Confirm RSS Start pop-up modal, click Start Campaign.

Other types of automations

Certain automated emails have their own unique builder. Take a look at our step-by-step instructions on how to create and edit abandoned cart messages, order notifications, and product retargeting emails.

Edit a custom-coded email

When you custom code your email, you’ll set your From name, From email, and subject like you normally would, depending on the type of email you’re working with. However, if you want to set preview text, you’ll need to add some special CSS and HTML code that includes the *|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* merge tag. This code will automatically pull in the text that you save in the Preview text field.

To add preview text to your custom-coded email, follow these steps.

1. Add preview text to the Preview text field in the builder you’re working with.
2. In your email code, locate or add <style type="text/css"> </style> tags and add this code to the "style type" value:

   .mcnPreviewText{display: none !important;}
   

3. Insert this code after the opening <body> tag in your HTML:

   <!--*|IF:MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*-->
   <!--[if !gte mso 9]><!----><span class="mcnPreviewText" style="display:none; font-size:0px; line-height:0px; max-height:0px; max-width:0px; opacity:0; overflow:hidden; visibility:hidden; mso-hide:all;">*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|*</span><!--<![endif]--> 
   <!--*|END:IF|*-->
   

   The IF:MC_PREVIEW_TEXT conditional tag looks to see whether you’ve set your preview text in the builder. The if !lgte mso 9 tag helps ensure your preview text displays properly in Outlook. And the span tags ensure that your preview text isn’t visible in the body of your email.

4. Save your code and continue editing your email as needed.

Write with AI

Customers with a Standard plan or higher can update the subject line and content in their regular email or customer journey using Write with AI. Write with AI is a generative AI tool that helps you create on-brand content with speed and efficiency based on prompts that you provide.

To learn more about this feature, check out Use Write with AI to Create Content.

Next steps

Our guides and tutorials contain additional resources to help you build your email campaigns. After you’ve learned how to edit your subject line, preview text, From name, and From email address, you may want to try some of these tasks.

Design an Email with the New Builder
Design an Email with the Classic Builder
Preview and Test Your Email
Tips for Sending Emails