Recreate an Existing Email with Claude

You can start a DailyStory email from one you already have: an email sent from another email marketing platform, a newsletter your team designed elsewhere, or a past campaign you want to reuse. Download the email from your inbox as an .eml file and give it to Claude, and Claude rebuilds it as a DailyStory email you can edit in the Email Designer.

This is the quickest way to move your existing emails into DailyStory when switching platforms. Send yourself a test of each email from your current platform, download it, and let Claude rebuild it.

There are two ways to do this. If Claude is connected to DailyStory with MCP, Claude creates the email in DailyStory for you, with nothing to import; see Recreate an email through MCP. Otherwise, install the DailyStory email skill in Claude and follow the steps below; see Build Emails with Claude.

Why rebuild instead of pasting the HTML

You can paste another platform's HTML into the HTML editor, but the result can't be edited in the Email Designer, and it carries over the other platform's tracking, footer and merge tags. Claude reads the email's layout and rebuilds it from DailyStory widgets instead, so headings, text, buttons, images and columns are all editable, and the email uses DailyStory's footer, personalization and tracking.

Step 1: Download the email as an .eml file

Open the email in your inbox and save it:

Email app	How to save as .eml
Gmail	Open the email, click the More menu (three dots) at the top right of the message, and choose Download message.
Outlook on the web and new Outlook	Open the email, click More actions (three dots), and choose Save as or Download.
Classic Outlook for Windows	Classic Outlook saves messages as .msg rather than .eml. Forward the email to a Gmail or Outlook.com address and download it from there, or use Outlook on the web.
Apple Mail	Select the email and choose File > Save As, with Format set to Raw Message Source, or drag the email to your desktop.
Thunderbird	Open the email and choose File > Save As > File.

If you are moving from another email platform, send a test of the email to yourself first, then download the test.

Step 2: Ask Claude to rebuild it

Start a new chat in Claude and attach the .eml file.
Ask Claude to recreate it as a DailyStory email, and say what should change. For example: "Recreate this email as a DailyStory email. Keep the layout and wording, but use our brand colors and change the button to link to our fall sale page."
Claude rebuilds the email and tells you what it changed or couldn't carry over. Review the result in the chat and ask for any changes.
Claude gives you a file to import: an .html file, or a .zip when the email contains images of its own.

If Claude is connected to DailyStory with MCP, skip Step 3: Claude creates the email for you. See Recreate an email through MCP.

Recreate an email through MCP

When Claude is connected to DailyStory with MCP, there is no skill to install and no file to download or import:

Start a new chat in Claude with the DailyStory connector turned on, and attach the .eml file.
Ask Claude to recreate it in DailyStory. For example: "Recreate this email in DailyStory. Keep the layout and wording, but use our brand colors." Claude reads your Brand Kit from DailyStory itself.
Claude shows you the email's content and asks which campaign to add it to. Once you confirm, it creates the email in DailyStory and gives you a link to it.
Ask Claude to send you a test, or to make further changes. It can edit the email in DailyStory directly.

One difference: through MCP, Claude can only use images that are on the web. Images contained in the email itself can't be uploaded this way, so Claude uses images from your website or File Manager when you give it their addresses, and a placeholder otherwise, and tells you which. If the email depends on images of its own, upload them to File Manager first, or use the import steps above.

What changes when Claude rebuilds an email

Layout: the email is rebuilt from DailyStory's rows, columns and widgets. Most layouts come across closely; unusual ones are adapted to the nearest DailyStory equivalent, and Claude tells you where.
Footer and unsubscribe: the original footer, unsubscribe link and "view in browser" link are replaced with DailyStory's standard footer, which uses your company details from the Brand Kit.
Personalization: merge tags from other platforms, such as Mailchimp's *|FNAME|*, are converted to DailyStory's. See Email Merge Tags.
Tracking: the other platform's tracking pixels and tracked links are removed. DailyStory adds its own open and click tracking when the email is sent.
Images: images contained in the email are brought into File Manager. Images linked from your own website stay linked. Images hosted by someone else are replaced with a placeholder for you to swap in the designer.
Dynamic content from the other platform, such as product feeds or countdown timers, isn't carried over. Add the DailyStory equivalent in the designer; see What the DailyStory Email Skill Supports.

Use emails you have the right to reuse

Recreate your own emails, or ones you have permission to use. If you share an email from another company, Claude will build an original email in a similar style using your brand and content rather than copying theirs.

Not the same as DailyStory email export

An .eml file is a standard email message from any email app. It is different from the .elmz file DailyStory creates when you export an email, which you import with Import Email. See Import and Export Emails.