How to Add Alt Text to Images in Your Email

You’ve spent hours designing a beautiful email — everything looks perfect. But when it lands in your subscriber’s inbox, something goes wrong. Images don’t load. Your call-to-action banner is blank. Or worse, your message becomes completely unreadable for someone using a screen reader.

This is exactly where alt text saves the day.

Adding alternative text (or “alt text”) to your images ensures that your message still lands — even if your visuals don’t. And in this guide, we’ll show you how to add alt text to images using Mailmodo’s email editor.

What are alt texts in emails?

Alt text, short for “alternative text,” is a descriptive line of text that you attach to an image in your email. It doesn’t show up when everything loads normally, but it becomes essential in two specific situations:

1. When images are blocked or don’t load: Many email clients (like Outlook or Gmail) block images by default — especially on first open. If that happens, instead of a blank box in place of your image, your reader will see the alt text.

2. For users relying on screen readers: Visually impaired users navigate the web using screen readers, which read out the contents of the email — including the alt text of images. If your visuals carry meaningful content (like buttons, offers, or charts), having alt text ensures every user understands the message and the visual parts of the emails, too.

Without alt text:

• Your emails become less accessible.

• Readers might miss critical information.

• You risk lower engagement — especially when your main offer is embedded inside an image.

How to add alt text to images in Mailmodo

Mailmodo gives you a powerful drag-and-drop editor to build responsive, interactive emails without any coding. It also makes it pretty easy to not just add images into your email templates but also add alt text to them.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Log in to your Mailmodo dashboard and go to Templates.

2. Click “Create new template” or open an existing one to edit. Basically, any template that you want to add images and alt texts to.

3. In the editor, from under the layout tab, drag an “Image” block into your email layout.

4. Add the image by choosing one of the options from your computer or by entering the image URL.

5. Once your image is placed, click on it to reveal the settings pane.

6. Fill the alt text field with a short, meaningful desccription of the image.

7. To be sure it works, send a test email and view it in an email client with images blocked — the alt text should appear in place of the image.

Conclusion

Alt text might seem like a minor detail, but it makes a major difference in email performance and accessibility. Whether your goal is to make your emails more inclusive or to ensure your message is always visible (even when images aren’t), adding alt text is a best practice you don’t want to skip.

With Mailmodo’s no-code editor, adding alt text can be as simple as filling in a field — just a few extra seconds per image can make your email dramatically more effective.

Design more accessible, high-performing emails starting today — all inside Mailmodo.