Latest / Sidekick's What Just Shipped / HubSpot email sections get rounded corners and borders | Shipped Sep 2026
Transcript
- Rob (AI host): Want your emails to look like your website, without touching code? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's email editor now lets you round the corners and add borders on individual sections. Rob (AI host): Stay for the Outlook detail that decides how far to lean on it. Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies. Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI. Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you. Rob (AI host): Thanks for joining us. Rob (AI host): Dana and I are AI hosts, and today we're working from HubSpot's help article on editing marketing email content and design, last updated in October. Dana (AI host): Great, and today I'm playing a hypothetical email marketer whose newsletter looks nothing like the company website. Rob (AI host): Perfect. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's article has a part called Edit section design, so you can style sections one at a time. Dana (AI host): Where does this start? Rob (AI host): Go to Marketing, then Email. Rob (AI host): Open an existing email, or click Create email in the top right. Rob (AI host): Then click a section in the editor. Dana (AI host): And the corners? Rob (AI host): In the Rounded corners section, enter a corner radius in the Top left field. Rob (AI host): Select Apply to all sides to use it on every corner, or set Top right, Bottom left, and Bottom right separately. Dana (AI host): Oh, so each corner can differ. Rob (AI host): Exactly. Dana (AI host): Does one section's rounding carry over to the next? Rob (AI host): In our research, no. Rob (AI host): Corner radius doesn't inherit across sections or from the template, so you set it section by section. Rob (AI host): Why it matters: in our research, rounded sections used to mean custom HTML, image backgrounds, or a design that didn't quite match the brand. Dana (AI host): What about borders? Rob (AI host): In the Borders section, pick a Border style from the dropdown, enter a width in pixels, and set a color with a hex value or the color picker. Dana (AI host): Can I put a border on just one side? Rob (AI host): Yes. Click Top, Right, Bottom, or Left, and any combination of sides can be selected. Dana (AI host): Love that. A hypothetical frame for my offer box, without a single line of code. Rob (AI host): So here's a made-up example: a top and bottom border on a promo section, to frame it without boxing it in, using your brand color from the hex field. Dana (AI host): And spacing around a section? Rob (AI host): You enter pixel values in the Top and Bottom fields of the Margins or Padding section. Dana (AI host): Only top and bottom? Rob (AI host): That's what HubSpot's help page describes, top and bottom fields. Rob (AI host): And in our research, left and right section margins aren't part of this release either. Dana (AI host): What else can I set on a section? Rob (AI host): Visibility, where you show or hide it on desktop and mobile. Rob (AI host): Then columns, column alignment, stacking for how columns appear on mobile, plus background and spacing. Dana (AI host): Can the background differ on phones? Rob (AI host): Yes. Rob (AI host): In the Background section, toggle the All devices switch off to set the mobile and desktop background separately. Dana (AI host): And building the columns themselves? Rob (AI host): Drag a module to the right or left of an existing module, and that creates a new column in the section. Rob (AI host): You can also clone or delete a module from its hover icons. Dana (AI host): And here's the Outlook part, right? Rob (AI host): Right. HubSpot says rounded corners will appear as square corners in Classic Outlook for Windows. Dana (AI host): So the design still has to work with square corners. Rob (AI host): That's the safe read. Rob (AI host): Our research adds that there's no other layout breakage, just square corners, and suggests testing in the email clients your list uses most before a full send. Dana (AI host): Can I reuse a styled section? Rob (AI host): With Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, saved sections let you save a section from a drag and drop email and reuse it in other marketing emails. Dana (AI host): Nice. That's my brand card, built once. Rob (AI host): Hover over a section, click the save icon, and give it a name. Rob (AI host): Later, drag it in from the Sections tab in the sidebar editor. Dana (AI host): And if I delete a saved section later? Rob (AI host): HubSpot says existing emails using that section won't be affected. Dana (AI host): Good, because I'd hate to break old sends. Rob (AI host): One more place to look. Rob (AI host): The template design icon sets the email-wide look: body color, buttons, and dividers with height, color, and a solid, dashed, or dotted style. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Rounded corners can make an email look like your brand, but the setup underneath decides whether it works. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Sidekick's Marketing Hub implementation starts with your marketing strategy, not the tool, then configures email sending, forms, landing pages, workflows, lead scoring, and reporting. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Every tool we configure comes with training for your marketing humans. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Find Marketing Hub Implementation under services at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Dana (AI host): My skeptic question. Dana (AI host): Our research says the old boxed layout option was removed, and existing emails migrate automatically. True? Rob (AI host): We couldn't confirm that. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's current article still lists Boxed as a format in template design, where all content fits within a single bordered area. Rob (AI host): The Template section still has a Border width setting labeled for the Boxed format, too. Rob (AI host): So check your own account before you rebuild anything. Dana (AI host): And tiers? Our write-up says every hub and tier. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's article lists Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. Treat those as the official tiers. Dana (AI host): Does this cover buttons and images too? Rob (AI host): These controls are for sections. Rob (AI host): Buttons get their own radius, which you set in template design, under the Buttons section. Dana (AI host): Huh, good catch. Rob (AI host): And one caveat from a related article. Rob (AI host): If you upload an external email template using AI, rounded corners and border colors on modules aren't supported in the upload, and neither are designs wider than six hundred pixels. Dana (AI host): So rebuild those touches by hand after the upload. Rob (AI host): Right, with the section controls. Dana (AI host): One naming note. Our research calls these Section Styles and Corner Radius. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's help page uses Rounded corners and Borders as the section names, so look for those words in the sidebar. Dana (AI host): Okay, good to know when I go hunting. Dana (AI host): Okay, plan for my imaginary newsletter. Rob (AI host): Step one: open your most-used email and click its main section. Dana (AI host): Step two: set one corner radius with Apply to all sides. Rob (AI host): Step three: add a border only on the sides that help, in your brand color. Dana (AI host): Step four: save it as a saved section if you're on Professional or Enterprise. Rob (AI host): Step five: preview the email and check that it still holds up with square corners, since that's what Classic Outlook for Windows readers will see. Dana (AI host): Newsletter verdict: use it, but design for square corners first and treat the rounding as a bonus. Rob (AI host): Round the corners, keep the copy sharp. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's email design help article and our research are linked in the show notes, with more at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Rob (AI host): Thanks for spending a few minutes with us. Dana (AI host): Go make something worth opening. Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music. Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.