Migrate an email from another platform
Give Penny an existing newsletter; get an editable design back.
From Campaigns → New campaign → Migrate, hand Penny an email you already have and she rebuilds it as an editable design. It’s the fastest way to bring years of design work across.
Three ways to give it to her
- A “view in browser” link — the web version most newsletters include. Usually the easiest.
- Pasted HTML — from your old platform’s export or source view.
- A
.emlfile — in Gmail, open the message and choose ⋮ → Download message. This is the answer when there’s no web version, and it brings embedded images with it.
What you get back
A single-column editable design with your copy, images, links and colours — not a pixel-perfect clone. That’s the trade-off: a copy you can’t edit would be worth much less than a rebuild you can.
Images are copied into your own media library, so the design doesn’t break the day your old account is closed — those URLs commonly expire or block hotlinking. Merge tags from the old platform are converted to ours.
It takes a few minutes, and you can walk away
A long newsletter is real work. It keeps running on our side, so it can’t time out — and you can close the window. Come back to New campaign → Migrate and Penny offers it back, finished, rather than making you run it again.
The old platform's tracking links are removed
This matters more than it sounds
An email you received has every link wrapped in the sender’s click tracker. Import it verbatim and you’d send your audience through their tracking — clicks recorded in someone else’s account, and links they can switch off at any time.
So wrapped links are unwound back to their real destinations automatically. Some trackers keep the destination on their own servers and can’t be recovered from the URL — those are listed for you to replace by hand rather than guessed at, because pointing your campaign somewhere you didn’t intend is worse than leaving a wrapper.
Common issues
It says part of the email was missing
A very large email can exceed what can be read in one pass. The draft is held back with a warning rather than sliding into the designer — check the end against the original before continuing.
The layout isn't identical
Expected. It rebuilds into editable blocks; spacing and multi-column arrangements usually want a tidy.
Some images didn't come across
A source that blocks hotlinking or has already expired. Re-upload those from the original.
The URL wouldn't fetch
It has to be publicly reachable — a link requiring a login won’t work. Use the .eml route instead.
FAQs
I closed the window while it was migrating — do I start again?+
No. Penny carries on after you close it. Go back to Campaigns → New campaign → Migrate and it’s waiting there — finished if it’s done, or still working if it isn’t, in which case you just wait out the rest of the original time. Name the campaign, choose Continue, and you’re in the designer. Offered for a day afterwards.
Does it count against my AI allowance?+
Yes, and a migration costs more than a draft because there’s far more to read. Ordinary use won’t come near the limit.
Can I migrate several at once?+
One at a time. Most people bring across a template or two rather than an archive.
Will my unsubscribe link come across?+
It doesn’t need to — a fresh one is added to every send automatically, pointing at your own unsubscribe page.