Home › How to create an email signature
Two parts: decide what goes in it, then put it in the right settings screen for whichever mail app you use. Both are below, and neither takes long.
To create an email signature, write the six lines that identify you — name, job title, company, phone, email and website — then open your mail app's settings, find the Signature section, paste it in and save. The signature is stored by your mail app, not by the person receiving it, so you set it once per app and it is added to your messages automatically from then on.
One thing that confuses people, and it is worth clearing up before you start: a signature is not attached to your inbox or your email address. It belongs to the app you send from. Set it in Gmail on your laptop and it will not appear when you send from the mail app on your phone — you have to set it there too. That is not a bug, and it is the single most common reason people think their signature 'stopped working'.
Six lines cover almost everyone. More than that and it starts competing with your actual message:
The name you want to be called, not necessarily your legal name.
What you do, in words an outsider understands. Skip internal grade names.
With a link to your site if you have one.
The one you will actually answer. On a phone this becomes tappable.
Yes, even though it is in the header — people forward messages, and the header does not always survive.
One link, the one you most want clicked.
Leave out: inspirational quotes, your full postal address unless you need it legally, a second phone number nobody answers, and social icons for accounts you do not post to. If you are weighing what to cut, the rules are here, and there are examples by profession if you want to see what a good one looks like in your line of work.
Pick the app you send from. If you use more than one — a laptop and a phone, say — do it in each, because they do not share the setting.
The shape is the same everywhere — Settings, find Signature, paste, save — but each app hides it somewhere different, and each has one trap worth knowing about before you start.
Do not compose a signature in Word or Google Docs and paste it in. It carries hidden formatting that breaks in other people's mail apps, and it is the usual cause of a signature that looks right to you and wrong to everyone else.
Send one message to yourself and check three things: that it appears on a reply and not only on a new message, that it still reads properly on your phone, and that any image actually loads rather than showing a broken icon. Those three account for most signature problems. If an image is missing, this walks through the causes; if the signature is not appearing at all, start here.
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Fill in six fields and copy a finished signature into your settings.
Create my signature — freeWrite the six lines that identify you — name, job title, company, phone, email and website — then open your mail app's settings, find the Signature section, paste them in and save. The signature is stored by the app you send from rather than by your email address, so if you send from both a computer and a phone you need to set it in both.
It is in your mail app's settings, but each app puts it in a different place. In Gmail it is under Settings, General, near the bottom. In Outlook it is under Settings, Mail, Compose and reply. In Apple Mail on a Mac it is Mail, Settings, Signatures. On an iPhone it is Settings, Apps, Mail, Signature.
Usually yes. The signature belongs to the app, not to your email account, so the one you set on your computer does not carry over to the mail app on your phone. This is the most common reason a signature appears on some messages and not others.
Name, job title, company, phone number, email address and one link — usually your website or a booking page. That covers almost every situation. Leave out quotes, unanswered second numbers, and social icons for accounts you do not actually use.
Yes. Plain text typed straight into your mail app's signature box works everywhere and never breaks. You only need a generator if you want a logo, brand colours or a designed layout, because those require email-safe HTML that is tedious to write and test by hand.
Almost always because it was composed somewhere else and pasted in. Word processors and web pages carry hidden formatting that other mail apps discard or misread. Write it in the mail app's own editor, or use a tool that produces email-safe HTML, then send yourself a test and open it on a second device.