What's new at Unlayer

🆕 Brand Context (available in the latest release)

Provide context to the AI Assistant to follow your brand identity, visual style, and tone. Brand Context can be configured at runtime or managed in Console, including importing a public website to create a draft. See docs.

🆕 AI Assistant (available in the stable release)

New chat-based AI assistant inside the builder — describe a change and it edits the design in place. See docs.

🆕 AI Importer (available in the stable release)

Convert an existing HTML email or a screenshot into a fully editable template in one click. See docs.

🆕 AI Credits API (available now)

Programmatically manage and monitor AI Assistant credit consumption for your end-users:

• Balance & usage — retrieve total/used/remaining credits and per-user, per-feature usage breakdowns

• Settings — configure exhaustion behavior, threshold alerts, and your webhook endpoint

• Webhooks — real-time usage_recorded, threshold_reached, and exhausted events, signed with HMAC-SHA256

Read the docs → https://docs.unlayer.com/server/cloud-api/ai-credits

Note: In-editor credit enforcement — hiding AI features (disable) or showing an exhausted-credits message (show_error) once credits run out — is available on the latest editor version. On stable, usage is still metered and all webhooks fire, but AI generations won't be blocked at exhaustion until you move to latest.

The following features and fixes are available on the latest channel and are candidates for the next stable release:

Changes

• 1.471.0: Added Brand Context, allowing the AI Assistant to follow your brand identity, visual style, and tone. Brand Context can be configured at runtime or managed in Console, including importing a public website to create a draft.

• 1.473.0: Improved AI Assistant performance, efficiency, and generation reliability, including automatic fallbacks and per-request AI Credit usage details. Also fixed validation failures with legacy designs and improved failure diagnostics.

• 1.474.0: Added a live AI Credits balance to the AI Assistant and introduced in-builder credit upsell, allowing you to show host-managed per-user balances and connect your own purchase flow.

• 1.475.0: Preserved EXIF image orientation in sent emails, fixed built-in tool icon overrides in classic themes, and kept custom Body and Images tab icons consistent while active.

• 1.476.0: Fixed setToolValidatoroverrides being lost and ensured excludeToolsapplies to tools registered after initialization.

• 1.477.0: Fixed superscript text spacing in email mode on mobile browsers.

• 1.482.0: Upgraded Inbox Previews with updated email-client selection, project-level defaults, per-client usage, and clearer access and limit states. Editors using a version before 1.479.0 will automatically migrate to the new Inbox Previews provider on September 7, 2026 at 00:00 UTC, without requiring a version change. You can try the latest version in our Console.

• 1.485.0: Added an opt-in AI Template Importer to the embedded AI Assistant, turning HTML and images into editable designs.

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Enabled AI image generation for Launch plan customers.

• Added a template validation endpoint and improved compatibility with older designs by upgrading legacy links, font weights, and synced block values.

• Improved performance with faster embedded startup, smaller bundles, faster editing, selection, toolbars, and previews, plus more reliable authentication and sessions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed distorted images in Outlook Classic when using merge tags as the image source.

• Fixed image dimension metadata that caused distorted rendering in exported emails created through the API.

• Fixed blank iframe content in image and PDF exports and hardened secure-origin rendering.

• Fixed AI credit exhaustion settings not being respected.

• Restored Magic Image for entitled users and enforced access gating.

• Fixed images rendering with distorted proportions in Outlook 365.

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Upgrade the editor to React 19. See examples.

• Allow image upload callbacks to abort or return errors.

• Support versioned runtime assets and editorVersion exports.

Bug Fixes

• Fix Collaboration mode missing from the Console editor.

• Fix Heading and Button tools switching back to the old text editor.

• Fix Timer tool failing to generate GIF when partial default values are passed via init method.

• Prevent {{url}}, {{href}}, and {{custom}} merge tags from being removed from link href attributes.

• Fix Custom Links failing to resolve merge tags.

• Fix Send Test Mail adding extra vertical spacing to paragraphs.

• Fix inconsistent line heights in Outlook Desktop.

• AI Assistant:

  • Keep prompt input below content tools.

  • Handle exhausted credits more clearly.

  • Fix malformed AI image editing responses and failover.

  • Additional fixes and improvements.

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Text Editor: Updated text editor for the Table tool and Rich Text Editor. See docs.

Bug Fixes

• Fix built-in tool icon overrides not loading when passed via init config

• Fix custom toolbar buttons in the Paragraph/Header/Button editors rendering without their configured icons

• Fix carousel image links missing from body chunks in Web mode and incomplete in Email mode

• Paragraph:

  • Fix IME composition replacing characters when started mid-text

  • Fix color picker autocompleting hex input

  • Fix textEditor.fontSize config being ignored

  • Fix stale merge tag name showing when in focus

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Table: support for multi-selection, bulk updates, and copy-pasting cells

• Inbox Previews: Improve UI & UX considerably (search/filter devices, improved speed, keyboard support and more)

Bug Fixes

• Fix <p> tags being inserted in Button and Heading tools

• Fix image:removed callback firing twice

• Outlook Rendering:

  • Fix border misalignment in Outlook 365

  • Fix extra whitespace around rows area in Outlook 365

• Paragraph:

  • Fix inconsistent smart merge tags label rendering

  • Fix nested Special Links not being added

  • Fix crash when using Shift+Enter for line breaks in bullet points

  • Fix bullet point text alignment not retained when inlineFontControls is enabled

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Add support for font family grouping. See the documentation here

Bug Fixes

• Custom Tools: Escape Custom Tool IDs in CSS selectors to prevent styling breakages

• Paragraph:

  • Fix handling of inlineFontControls on templates created with a different config

  • Fix inconsistent paste formatting and only show the Clean Paste prompt for plans that include it

• Merge Tags: Fix UI issue in dropdown list

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• AI: Improve quality of images generated by AI

  • Upgrade the underlying model from OpenAI to Google Gemini (Nano Banana) to provide significantly higher image quality and better generation speed

  • ⚠️ Action Required: If you previously provided a custom OpenAI API Key, we recommend adding a Google Gemini API Key in the Unlayer Console (Builder Settings > Premium) to maintain your custom configuration

Bug Fixes

• General: Fix rendering of big labels in dropdowns

• Social: Fix social icons wrapping to new line when spacing is 0

• Carousel: Hide unsupported Loop and Auto Play options from non-amp Carousel

• Blocks: Only fetch blocks after opening the Blocks tab

• Heading/Button: The Heading and Button tools are now powered by Lexical. Existing headings and buttons will continue to use TinyMCE and will remain fully functional

• Text/Paragraph:

  • Fix Text/Paragraph superscript/subscript causing line height to change

  • Fix merge tag button translation text not overridable in the Paragraph tool

  • Fix different behavior of font-size and line-height depending on the value of inlineFontControls config option

  • Fix Paragraph custom buttons adding plain text instead of HTML entities

  • Fix IME composition suggestions not showing in the Paragraph tool

  • Fix incorrect font name display when setting a default font family value in the Paragraph tool

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Accessibility: Ability to set HTML title in UI

• Callbacks: Expose context object with ids in some callbacks (mergeTag, mergeTagRule, displayCondition)

• Table: new tool with enhanced editing experience

• Text → Paragraph: The Text tool (based on TinyMCE) has been deprecated in favor of the new Paragraph tool powered by Lexical. This provides better inline editing, performance, and customization. Existing designs using the Text tool will remain functional.

Bug Fixes

• Drag-and-drop: Fix issue after reordering rows

• Image: Fix autoWidth mismatch between Viewer and Preview html output and update calculation to take row padding and borders into account

• Sync Blocks: general bug fixes

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Accessibility: Color contrast improvements

• Preview: New API for customizing device resolutions in Preview Mode

• Undo/Redo: Improved behavior of the undo/redo feature; now the related elements will be selected and focused (docs)

• Synced Blocks: Allow users to create and maintain reusable content blocks that stay synchronized across multiple designs

• Countdown: Fix some countdown translations (e.g. French)

Bug Fixes

• HTML Code Blocks: Fix support for &lt and &gt inside HTML tool

• Custom LinkTypes: Prevent empty < a > tags from being generated when fields are cleared (applies to most tools; button support pending)

• Popup: Fix overlay not displaying correctly in some cases

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Popup: Ability to set display delay (See docs)

• Video: Add link types support to Video tool

• Translations: Add missing translations for all supported languages

Bug Fixes

• Custom tools: Fix rich text editor disappearing after changing colors

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Header and Footer: Add header and footer support to multiple editors

• Collapsed Property Groups by default: Allow property groups to be collapsed by default in custom tools (See docs)

• Link Editor: Improve input handling for URLs with spaces

• Disable Merge Tags Autocomplete: Ability to disable the Merge Tags Autocomplete Menu Trigger by passing "null" to the config (See docs)

• Blocks: Improve loading feedback when a block is created, deleted, or updated

• Translations: Add some missing translations

• Accessibility: Apply ARIA labels to exported HTML of some built-in tools

Bug Fixes

• Fix Image Special Characters Support: Fix support for uploading and searching images with special characters in the filename

• Fix Merge Tags Autocomplete: Fix shortcut "{" not triggering the Merge Tags Autocomplete Menu when the "mergeTags" callback was set

• Merge Tags: Fix merge tags with spaces getting encoded in text links

• React flushSync: Fix Preview modal support for calling React flushSync method inside tool exporters

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• TinyMCE v6: Upgraded the text editor from version 5 to 6

• Form Placeholder Text Alignment: Ability to set the alignment of placeholder texts in form tool

Bug Fixes

• Stable vs Latest: Fix editor pointing to latest instead of stable by default

• Fix Character Encoding In URL: Fix character "{" getting decoded when it shouldn't

• Fix Merge Tags Line Break Issue: Fix issue related to merge tags with line breaks ("\n") and HTML code inside the "value" attribute

• Fix Video URL Editing: Fix glitchy behavior when manually editing video url

• Fix Merge Tags Custom UI: Fix Merge Tags Custom UI (when using the "mergeTag" callback) not properly adding merge tags in the correct position, or not adding them at all in some cases

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Accessibility Improvements: Improved accessibility of the editor and the exported html, e.g. by adding a role="presentation" to the table elements and allow passing a custom title (See docs)

• Custom Placeholder URL: Add ability to change image placeholder URL (See docs)

• Big List Performance: Improve performance of big lists when using Link Types

• Sort Link Types: Add new sortOptions config option to the Link Types API (See docs)

• Form Font Family: Add ability to change font family of form labels, buttons and input fields

• Small Screens Responsiveness: Improve editor responsiveness on smaller screens

Bug Fixes

• Link Type onClick: Fix urls being stripped after double slashes (//) when inside a Link Type onClick handler

• Blocks Endpoint Big Payload: Improve support for bigger responses in the blocks api endpoint

• Broken Zip Files: Fix issue where unlayer releases had corrupted images inside of them

• Wrong OnPrem Version: Fix issue where the editor was trying to load a different version than it should when using the offline bundles (zip files)

• Stock Images Aspect Ratio: Fix wrong aspect ratio in some stock images

• Fix Timer RGB Color Issue: Fix countdown not being generated if a RGB/RGBA color was passed instead of a HEX color

• Fix Image Size Increasing: Fix image editing increasing the size of images

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• AI Improvements: Preserve locale and merge tags when using the AI features

• Dev Tab: A new tab on your localhost editor instance that should help you setup the editor

The following fixes and features are available on the stable channel:

Features & Improvements

• Themes API: Added API support for setting up custom editor themes beyond custom JS/CSS. You can pass a theme object in the initial config or call the setTheme method. Learn More.

• Carousel for Web Pages: Added support for a carousel component in web pages, allowing users to display multiple images or content slides interactively.

• Menu Tool onClick Support: Add support for onClick in the Menu Tool for Web and Popup display modes.

• Locked Rows: Support marking Rows, Columns and Content as Locked, preventing any change to be made on them. Learn More.

Bug Fixes

• $ Replacement Fix: Fixed an issue where the $ symbol was incorrectly being replaced with "px" when inlineStyles: true was enabled.

• Custom Font Weight Fix: Resolved an issue where custom font weights defined in object format were not applied correctly.

• Hide on Desktop: Fixed an issue where the css got broken when inlineStyle: true was enabled

• Form Tool Missing in Builder: Fix form tool not showing up in the list of available tools for some users

• Inconsistent white spaces: Improve how white spaces are handled in the Text tool

• Countdown Timer Improvements: Allow you to duplicate a template and edit the new Timer without affecting the Timer from the previous template

• Inbox Previews: Ensure Inbox Previews correctly uses the previewHtml callback for rendering.

• Safe HTML with Merge Tags: Fixed an issue where the merge tags moved around in the HTML structure when safeHTML was set to true.

• Image Quality Fix: Fixed an issue where images uploaded to the Unlayer's servers were being displayed with low resolution on MacBooks with Retina Display.

• Menu Tool Export Error: Fix undefined variable error that was happening in a few cases for the Menu tool on email mode, particularly when dropping a saved block or setting the separator option.

Features & Improvements

• YouTube Live Thumbnail Support: Added the ability for the Video tool to generate thumbnails from YouTube /live video URLs.

• Link Label in JSON: The link editor now saves the label in addition to the value in the JSON, making sure the human readable label will always be available to be shown in the UI.

• Image Callback with ID Support: The image callbacks now better support custom string IDs provided by the user.

Bug Fixes

• Crash on Empty URL: Fixed an issue where the Link Editor would crash if the href field was null.

• Merge Tag Preview Fix: Improved merge tag previews in the document builder for accuracy.

• Mobile View Rendering Fix: Stopped the builder from incorrectly switching to mobile view when resizing the browser window.

• Link Modal Text Overflow: Fixed text overflow issues in the link modal.

• Outlook Rendering Fix: Resolved rendering issues on Outlook mobile when minification is enabled for designs.

• Improved Styling Issues: Resolved issues with the appearance and user interface of the comments section and inbox preview.

• Increased Text Spacing in Gmail: Fixed excessive text spacing in Gmail for consistent typography.

• Text Direction in Heading & Button Tools: Fixed text direction not applying in Heading and Button tools.

• Text Toolbar Overlapping Content: Fixed toolbar blocking top lines of text while editing.

• RTL Text Rendering in Emails: Fixed RTL text formatting issues in sent emails.

• Merge Tag Styling Fix: Fixed an issue where text color and background color could not be changed for merge tags.

• Image Size in Outlook Mobile: Fixed an issue where images appeared significantly larger than intended in Outlook mobile emails.

• Template Colors Update Fix: Fixed an issue where outdated colors continued to appear in the template color selection after changes were made.

• Export Error Fix for Web Templates: Resolved an issue where exporting HTML failed for certain web templates.

Bug Fixes

• Console Image Error Fixed: Resolved an issue where image-related errors appeared in the console.

• Saved Block Rendering Issue: Fixed a problem where saved blocks were rendering multiple columns incorrectly.

• Temporary Image Update Fix: Prevented the design:updated event from being triggered unnecessarily when temporary images were added.

• Text Editor Stability: Fixed an issue where the text editor would close unexpectedly while the user was typing.

• Audit Tab Visual Fix: Removed an extra border that appeared in the Audit tab.

• Property Group Icon Alignment: Corrected icon sizes and alignment issues within property groups.

• Button Tool Merge Tags: Fixed merge tag support in the button tool, ensuring proper rendering and functionality.

• Loading Spinner Speed: Made the initial loading spinner appear faster for a better user experience.

• AI Image Persistence: Addressed an issue where AI-generated images would disappear unexpectedly.

• Social Tool Alignment Fix: Resolved alignment issues with icons in the Social tool.

• AI Image Tab Fix: Fixed a bug preventing AI image entry when the image tab was disabled.

• Smart Merge Tags in Buttons: Fixed issues with smart merge tag rendering within button elements.

Features & Improvements

• Performance Boost: Improved overall builder performance for faster and smoother operation.

• New Default Theme: Updated the default theme to “Modern (Light)” for a refreshed look.

• Enhanced Image Editor: Introduced improvements to the image editor for a more intuitive and robust editing experience.

• Safe HTML Support: Added support for safeHtml in the Cloud API to improve security and flexibility.

• AI-Generated Alt Text: Users can now instantly generate alternate text for images using AI, enhancing accessibility.

• AI Features Redesign: Improved the design and usability of AI-powered text generation features.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed double border in number property editors

• Fixed CORS error with specific image URLs

• Fixed double border in preview bar

• Fixed click detection when editing form fields

• Fixed counter steps for letter spacing control

• Fixed design:updated event not being triggered on every change

• Fixed colors not showing in text editor color picker

• Fixed tablet device support

Features & Improvements

• Ability to label and describe rows

• Allow hiding general styling options like container padding

• Ability to adjust letter spacing in existing tools

• Brands can now define their style guide

• Improved the performance of AI by using an updated model

• Improved and more flexible color picker API

• Ability to add file downloads to link types

• Ability to inline global link styles (for Gmail)

• Expose unlayer.versions with latest and stable versions

• Added AI image creator to images tab

• Improved performance related to device switching

Bug Fixes

• Sanitize exported html of custom tools when safeHtml is true

• Button/Text tool appearance goes back to initial state after changing the color and closing the color picker

• Cursor jumping to the start while typing in an empty text box

• Merge tags containing [[ ]] brackets are being stripped within a <p> tag

Features & Improvements

• Add option to dismiss custom errors in Audit tool

• Add support for more images in widgetParams and fixed image info showing up on Mobile tab when it shouldn't

• Fixed Magic Image for new themes