Answer

Why is Gmail clipping my invoice email?

Gmail clips any message whose HTML is larger than about 102 KB, hiding everything past that point behind a 'View entire message' link, which can swallow your payment details and your call to action. Here is what pushes an email over the limit and how to keep it well under.

Gmail clips an email when the message HTML exceeds roughly 102 KB. It shows the top of the message and replaces the rest with a "View entire message" link. The clip is measured on the HTML size of the message body, not on attachments, so a heavy, image-laden invoice template is the usual culprit. The risk is that the part Gmail hides is exactly the part that matters: the amount due, the bank details, and the button to view or pay. The reliable fix is to send a short, light email whose job is to link to the invoice, rather than to be the invoice.

What pushes the email over 102 KB

Ranked by how often each is the cause.

Most likely

The whole invoice is rendered inside the email body

If your tool builds the full invoice, with its table, logo, styling, and line items, directly into the email HTML, you can blow past 102 KB on a single moderately detailed invoice. Everything below the cut, often the totals and payment details, disappears behind the clip link.

The fix is to send the invoice as a link to a hosted page and keep the email itself to a short summary. The recipient clicks through to the full invoice, which has no size limit, and nothing important is ever clipped. See how to send an invoice without a PDF attachment.

Common

Large or base64-embedded images

A high-resolution logo or a banner embedded directly in the HTML (as a base64 data URI) inflates the message size dramatically, because the image data is counted as part of the HTML. Two or three embedded images can clip an otherwise small email on their own.

Reference images by URL rather than embedding them, and keep logos appropriately sized. A link-based invoice email needs almost no imagery, because the visual invoice lives on the hosted page.

Common

A long quoted thread or heavy signature

Replying on a long email thread carries the entire quoted history into the new message, and a marketing-heavy HTML signature adds more. Send a third or fourth follow-up "on top" of the thread and the accumulated HTML alone can trip the clip.

For invoice sends, start a fresh, clean message rather than replying down a long chain, and keep the signature simple. The goal is a small, single-purpose email.

Less common

Bloated HTML from a template builder

Some email and invoice templates generate extremely verbose HTML, with deeply nested tables and repeated inline styles on every cell. The rendered email looks normal but weighs far more than it should, clipping with surprisingly little visible content.

A lean, link-first email sidesteps this entirely. There is little markup to bloat when the email's only real job is a one-line summary and a button.

Two-minute diagnosis

  1. Send yourself the invoice email and open it in Gmail. If you see "View entire message" at the bottom, it is clipped.
  2. Check for embedded images and a long quoted thread, the two fastest things to strip out.
  3. Move the invoice itself out of the email. Send a short summary plus a link to the hosted invoice.
  4. Re-test. A link-based invoice email is a few KB and never clips.

When Gmail clips the invoice email

What exactly is the size limit?
Gmail clips messages once the HTML exceeds roughly 102 KB. It is measured on the message body's HTML, not on attachments, so the fix is to reduce the size of the email content itself, primarily by not rendering the whole invoice inside it.
Does the clip hurt deliverability or just display?
It is mainly a display and conversion problem: the recipient sees a truncated email and has to click 'View entire message' to see the rest, which many never do. If your payment details or view button are below the cut, they effectively vanish. It can also look unprofessional.
Do attachments count toward the 102 KB?
No. The clip is based on the HTML body size, so a PDF attachment does not directly cause clipping. But heavy inline HTML and embedded images do. Sending the invoice as a link rather than building it into the body is the most reliable fix.
Will making the email plainer fix it?
Largely, yes. Removing embedded images, not replying down a long thread, and trimming the signature all help. The most durable fix is structural: keep the email short and put the invoice on a hosted page it links to, so the body stays a few KB regardless of how detailed the invoice is.
How does JupiterInvoice avoid clipping?
It sends a short, light email that links to the hosted invoice rather than embedding the whole document. The email stays far under the limit, so the amount due, the payment details, and the view button are always visible, and the full invoice lives on a page with no size constraint.

Last updated June 1, 2026

Send an invoice email that never clips

JupiterInvoice sends a light email that links to a hosted invoice, so the body stays a few KB and Gmail never hides your payment details. The full invoice lives on a page with no size limit. Free, no signup.

Create your first invoice

No signup required. Build now, save later.