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What is email-templates?

forwardemail/email-templates — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-03

3,733JavaScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · moderate

In one sentence

A Node.js package for creating, previewing, and sending HTML emails using Pug templates with automatic CSS inlining, browser preview in development, and Nodemailer integration.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((email-templates))
    What it does
      Renders templates
      Sends via Nodemailer
      Inlines CSS
    Template engines
      Pug default
      EJS and others
    Features
      Browser auto-preview
      CSS inlining
      Localization
      File attachments
    Setup
      npm install
      SMTP credentials
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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Build a transactional email system with reusable Pug templates that fill in user-specific variables like name or order number before sending.

USE CASE 2

Preview outgoing HTML emails automatically in your browser during local development without actually sending anything.

USE CASE 3

Inline CSS styles into email HTML before sending so layouts are not broken by email clients that strip style blocks.

USE CASE 4

Send multilingual emails by loading localized template versions based on the user's preferred language.

What is it built with?

JavaScriptNode.jsNodemailerPugJuice

How does it compare?

forwardemail/email-templatespetruisfan/node-supervisorbloomberggraphics/whatiscode
Stars3,7333,7333,734
LanguageJavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultymoderateeasyeasy
Complexity2/51/51/5
Audiencedeveloperdevelopergeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires a working Nodemailer transport such as SMTP credentials or a transactional email service API key.

No license information is provided in the explanation.

So what is it?

Email Templates is a Node.js package for creating, previewing, and sending HTML emails using template files. It is built on top of Nodemailer, the standard Node.js email-sending library, and adds a layer for managing reusable templates and rendering them before sending. You organize email content as template files inside named folders. Each folder holds the HTML template, an optional plain-text version, and a subject line template. By default the package uses Pug as the templating language, where you write HTML with variables that get filled in at send time, but you can swap in other template engines like EJS. You pass local variables to the send call, and the package renders them into the template before handing the result to Nodemailer. One useful feature in development is automatic email previewing. When you run your application with the development environment flag set, the package renders each outgoing email to a temporary file and opens it in your browser automatically, so you can check layout without actually sending anything. You can configure it to open in a specific browser if needed. CSS inlining is built in via the Juice library. You link a stylesheet in your template, mark it with a data attribute, and the package converts those external styles into inline styles before sending. This matters for email clients that strip out style blocks. Other features described in the README include: file attachments, localization for multilingual emails, text-only email output, subject line prefixes, and the ability to load template content from a database instead of the file system. The README also contains a full changelog of breaking changes across major versions going back to version 3, which is useful if you are upgrading an existing installation. The full README is longer than what was shown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm using forwardemail/email-templates with Nodemailer. How do I create a Pug template for a welcome email, pass in a user's name and plan, and send it via SMTP?
Prompt 2
How do I enable the browser auto-preview feature in forwardemail/email-templates so I can check email layout during local development?
Prompt 3
How do I set up CSS inlining with forwardemail/email-templates using the Juice data attribute so my stylesheet is baked into inline styles before the email is sent?
Prompt 4
How do I add localization to forwardemail/email-templates so the same template sends in English or Spanish depending on the user's locale setting?

Frequently asked questions

What is email-templates?

A Node.js package for creating, previewing, and sending HTML emails using Pug templates with automatic CSS inlining, browser preview in development, and Nodemailer integration.

What language is email-templates written in?

Mainly JavaScript. The stack also includes JavaScript, Node.js, Nodemailer.

What license does email-templates use?

No license information is provided in the explanation.

How hard is email-templates to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is email-templates for?

Mainly developer.

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