Email Image Size: The Optimal Newsletter Image Dimensions For 2023

Email images are the unsung heroes of super-successful newsletters. Stellar images make your newsletter content pop, fizz, and captivate users. They complement your words and drive your message home. Without images and clever email design, your newsletter is plain and lifeless.

In short–your email image size matters more than you think.

But for your images to be truly compelling, you’ll need to nail all aspects of using images in emails–that's where email image size optimization comes in. One of the biggest questions regarding email image size optimization is, what's the best email image size?

Let’s dive right in for a helpful how-to.

Best Email Image Size (The Facts)

Let's cut straight to the chase.

The best size of an email image is 600 px x 750 px on desktops and 320 px x 385 px on mobile devices. For email banner height, 1728 px is ideal.

Okay, but how did email experts arrive at these figures?

It's all about matching screen resolution sizes. According to StatCounter Global Stats, the most popular desktop screen resolution globally is 1920 px x 1080 px, while 360 px x 800 px tops the screen resolution charts for mobile devices.

(Images here)

As you can see, the recommended sizes are smaller than the actual screen dimensions. That extra room ensures they render well on all devices.

Size Of An Email (Why Does It Matter?)

Why should we bother with the dimensions for email newsletters in the first place? It all comes down to deliverability. Email deliverability is integral to your newsletter’s success. No matter how stellar your newsletter content is, if no one ever sees it, then what’s the point? Dimensions impact deliverability in a few key ways.

1. Oversize email images might trigger spam filters.

The bigger your image, the higher the chances that email client spam filters will flag it as spam. Firewalls block huge photos–spammers love to ambush users by displaying their content using giant images, so email clients block suspicious photos to protect their customers.

2. Bulky email newsletter images slow your email load speed.

Email load speed is a vital component for newsletter success.

Small images are lighter, so they load faster. Bigger images are heavier and load more slowly because it takes more resources to download them. So, the bigger your images, the slower your email load speed, and the longer it takes for your newsletter content to display when the users open your email. Impatient subscribers will dump your email at the slightest provocation.

In short, a sluggish email loading time can cost you subscribers because of a poor user experience.

3. Unoptimized email images don't render correctly across clients and devices.

Unoptimized newsletter images may look wildly different than intended on different devices.

Again, this comes back to size–some email clients clip larger-than-normal images, and may get cut off or distorted. When your image gets cut off, it doesn't communicate its message fully. Your conversions suffer for it. Misshapen images compromise quality, which frustrates users. It may come across as unprofessional, or suggest poor overall newsletter quality.

In particular, mobile devices–where most people open and read emails–are sensitive to unoptimized images.

Image Size For Emails (How To Optimize)

Below are three email image size optimization best practices.

1. Use the correct image file types.

Using the correct image file type is a crucial part of image optimization.

There's no one-size-fits-all image type. Different file types work for different contexts. Let's go over a few image types and their best use cases.

• JPEGs: JPEG or JPG means Joint Photographic Experts Group, the originators of the popular file format. The major disadvantage of JPEG is that you lose the quality of the image if you compress it too much. It also doesn't work well with logos and text-heavy images, nor does it support image transparency. Plus, you can't animate it. That said, JPEG is superb for photographs, 24-bit color images, and small image sizes.

• PNG: PNG is short for Portable Network Graphics. Unlike JPEG, PNG has excellent image transparency support. Plus, it's perfect for text images and logos. But PNG isn't ideal for large file sizes. Another disadvantage of PNG files is that not all browsers support them, so you won't be able to reach all your audience segments.

• GIFs: Next comes the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). GIFs have exploded because you can animate them, spicing up your newsletter with fascinating visuals. They work well for text images and line drawings. GIFs support transparency too. If your photos have a few colors, GIFs will do the trick. The major drawback of GIFs is their bulkiness. Another con is they aren't suitable for photographs.

Choose an image file that suits your campaign goal and whose size doesn't compromise quality. Use the following image converters to change images to your preferred formats:

1. Online image converter (Free online app) Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, PDF, TIFF, ICO, and BMP.

2. FileZigZag (Free online app) Supported formats: PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, and more.

3. Convertio (Free online app) PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIIF, and others.

4. AVS Image Converter (Free Windows app)Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF

5. Batch Photo (Mac app, starts at $29.95) Supported formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and BMP.

2. Crop images to your desired dimensions.

To get the best email image size, crop your image to the precise dimensions you want. That's where cropping tools come in handy. Take your pick from these online image-cropping tools:

1. Croppola

2. Fotor

3. Pixlr

4. Photo Director

5. BeFunky

3. Compress images for faster loading times.

Since bulky images negatively impact email load speed, compressing them before using them in your newsletter is standard practice. Compressed images are lighter and load faster.

Image optimizer tools can compress images up to 90% of their original size. But, there's a caveat–higher compression rates lower image quality significantly. So, it would be best if you found the right balance. For most optimizers, the default compression rate is -65%. At this rate, you can reduce image size without losing quality.

Here are a few top image resizer tools you can pick from.

• Compress Now: Compress Now works with JPEG, PNG, and GIF. But the drawback is that its output for all image file types is JEG.

• JPEG Optimizer: As you can tell from the name, JPEG Optimizer only compresses JPEGs. If you want to compress PNGs or GIFs, you must find another tool.

• TinyPNG: TinyPNG compresses PNG and JPEG files and has a plugin for WordPress users. But it doesn't support GIFs.

• Optimizilla: Optimizilla handles JPEG, GIF, and PNG formats. You can fine-tune the output manually to get the quality you want.

• JPEG.io: JPEG.io turns any image file type like PSG, GIF, SVG, or PSD into a JPEG image. It allows you to grab images from your Dropbox or Google Drive.

• Compressor.io: Compressor.io reduces the file sizes of JPEG, PNG, SVG, GIF, and WEBP images. You can customize the size reduction.

Overall, there's a super cool tool that does it all. It's the Swiss army knife of image optimization that does everything right. With iLoveIMG, you can:

• Convert to JPG- Change PNG, GIF, TIF, PSD, SVG, WEBP, HEIC, or RAW format images into JPG.

• Convert from JPG- Convert JPG images to PNG and GIF. You can also combine many GIFs into animated GIFs in a flash.

• Compress images- Compress JPG, PNG, SVG, and GIF images without compromising quality.

• Resize images- Define the exact dimensions of your pictures by pixel or percent to resize JPG, PNG, GIF, and SVG.

• Photo editor- Jazz up your images with stickers, text, effects, or frames. 

How To Get The Best Email Image Size For Your Newsletter (And More) With beehiiv

beehiiv allows you to edit and resize your email images. Here are a few more things you can do with pictures inside the beehiiv editor:

• Search for the ideal image for your campaign from the media library.

• Upload your own photos.

• Resize the image to your exact dimensions.

• Change the background color of the picture.

• Edit the image itself.

• Hyperlink the image.

• Edit the image metadata like source URL and alt text.

• Add a GIF if it's under 10 Mb in size.

Dimensions For Email Newsletter (Closing Thoughts)

Honing in on the best email image size for your newsletter is vital to the modern content creation workflow.

It's not an afterthought–seasoned email marketers know the value of using accurate dimensions for email newsletter images.

A proper-sized email image:

• Renders correctly on all devices.

• Communicates your message fully.

• Grabs subscribers' attention.

• Helps achieve your campaign goal.

Get the best results from your newsletter with precise email image sizes.

Size your newsletter images perfectly with beehiiv. Start now!