How can I send a pre-composed email to a Gmail user, for them to edit and send?

Question

I want to:

• Compose an email A
• Send it as an attachment in another message B to Gmail user X

User X having received email A wants to:

• Open email A
• Edit it
• Send it (From: user X)

How can this be done?

I tried sending a EML but Gmail does not allow user X to edit or send it.

Answer 1

Not Supported

This can't be done easily, and Gmail is particularly ill-suited to this task even for editing and resending one's own emails, let alone sending an email attachment to another Gmail user for them to edit and resend.

In Gmail editing pre-made messages is done using templates, but Gmail doesn't provide a way to share templates with other users. If you send an email to someone they can save it as a template but that doesn't apply to EML attachments.

Extension

You might try the extension Gmail Email Templates by cloudHQ. I haven't used it myself but it was mentioned to me as a solution for sharing templates with team members, and the webstore page lists many of the features you need. Devil's in the details though, and I expect that both you and the recipient will need to install and understand it.

Approach Using Google Docs

My recommendation would be to change approaches. Instead of trying to share an email, share a Google Doc.

1. Google Docs are easy to collaborate on and share with others
2. Google Docs can easily become email drafts
3. Your recipient will likely already have experience with Google Docs

Use Google Docs to draft emails

^{Source: Google Docs Editors Help}
From your computer, you can use Google Docs to write an email draft and quickly preview it in Gmail.

Work with email drafts on Google Docs

1. On your computer, open a Google Doc.
2. At the top left, click Insert > Building blocks > Email draft
   • You can also type "@email" in the doc and press Enter
3. To add recipients in the "To" field, type "@" and search your contacts, or type out email addresses.
4. You can add a subject line, write text in the email body, and format your draft.
   • Tip: You can collaborate with others in your doc to write an email draft. Learn more about how to share access to your doc.

Preview and send your email draft in Gmail

1. At the top left of the email draft, click Preview in Gmail Preview in Gmail.
2. In the pop-up Gmail window, you can make additional changes to your email.
3. When you are ready, click Send.
   • Important: The email draft will be sent from the account you are logged into.

  Additional Resource:   Share files from Google Drive

Answer 2

You could use a customized mailto link in your email. The user can click on the link and have a template email all ready to go.

Note that this will open the template email in their system's default email client - this can be set up to open with Gmail, but may cause confusion if they use something else by default.

Unfortunately (but for good reason), mailto: links don't work in answers, so I can't give you a clickable example, but here's an example of a link and the results:

Example link

(Remove the space after mailto: from the below example. The markdown parser won't let me start the example with mailto: without the space.)

mailto: example@example.com?cc=examplecc@example.com&subject=Request%20for%20rock%20information&body=Hi,%0A%0AI am interested in more information about rocks. Could you provide me with more information about rocks?%0AMy preferred contact method is (EMAIL/PHONE/TEXT) and you can reach me at (CONTACT DETAILS).%0A%0AThanks and happy rocking!%0A(YOUR NAME HERE)

Example - your email

Example - when they click the link