You cannot see what email client people are using. It is an issue in the Outlook software which could also be used by gmail users
Topic summary
Shopify notification emails are rendering with blank bodies in the Outlook desktop app, starting roughly 12–24 hours ago (around noon GMT). The same emails display correctly in Outlook 365 webmail and on mobile.
Affected messages include Contact Us submissions, login notifications, CSV product import and inventory reports, and order export emails, typically from mailer@shopify.com. Some users also report missing attachments.
Viewing the raw HTML and opening it in a web browser renders content, indicating a rendering—not delivery—issue specific to Outlook desktop.
Technical cause suggested: problems in the HTML headers/character encoding of Shopify emails. A likely recent encoding change is outputting characters (e.g., “<”) incorrectly, which breaks Outlook’s Word-based HTML renderer. Clarifications were made between MIME headers (email metadata) and HTML email code (body markup). Screenshots were shared to illustrate.
Shopify support acknowledges widespread impact, merged threads, and says developers are investigating. One support chat attributed the issue to Outlook/Hotmail; others believe Shopify’s formatting changed.
Workarounds: use Outlook in a browser/webmail, read on mobile, or save/view the HTML in a web browser.
Status: no fix yet. Thread marked “Solved” for visibility, but users note it remains unresolved.
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