Author Archives: Kamil

Written by Kamil

Published on Jun 18, 2021
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How to set up an HTML email signature in Apple Mail

Creating and adding your email signature to Apple Mail should be as easy as possible. Is it, though? If you’ve ever had any problem with setting up your email signature in Apple Mail, this guide is for you. I’ll show you how to create an email signature with a free email signature generator and how to add it to the Apple’s native email client.

How to add an HTML email signature in Apple Mail – the easy way

To set up a professional email signature in Apple Mail, follow this short instruction:

Before you begin, a word of warning. If possible, don’t use the email signature generator with the Safari browser. I don’t want to point fingers, but this browser has the tendency of adding unnecessary formatting to signatures. So, unless you want to give a slight Picasso vibe with an abstract signature formatting, use another browser, or proceed at your own risk.
Go to the signature generator, leave the default email client (Outlook) and follow the intuitive interface to create your own email signature. When in doubt, you can always refer to the user’s manual. When the email signature preview on the right looks great, click Apply your signature.

Next, Copy your signature to the clipboard.

Start your Mail App.

Then, in Mac Mail, go to Mail > Preferences > Signatures.

Before you proceed with anything else, switch from All signatures to your email account (1), add a new email signature with the + button (2) and uncheck the Always match my default message font option (3). If you don’t do it, the signature probably won’t turn out right. Next, paste the signature you have copied earlier (4) and (optionally) select it as the default one (5). The signature won’t look right in the Apple Mail’s editor at this point.

When you compose a new email, the signature should be there with all the formatting and images displayed correctly (even if they were missing in the signature editor).

Not so hard, was it?

How to add an HTML email signature in Apple Mail – the hard way

This method is not that hard, but definitely takes more time than the previous one. You might wonder why would anyone want to choose the hard way when the first method is so easy and works well?

I might have failed to mention one tiny detail. If you use the easy way, your email signature will not be entirely dark mode friendly:

Apple Mail signature dark mode not-so-friendly

While dark mode in Apple Mail isn’t the most reliable and tends to behave unexpectedly (whenever I open any email for the second time, the background magically becomes white), you can set up your signature to be completely dark mode friendly. The method described below is also a fallback option if you can’t set up your HTML email signature the easy way, whatever the reason.

In the email signature generator, follow the same steps you would follow in the easy way. But instead of Outlook, choose Thunderbird as your email platform. When you click Apply your signature, you will be able to Generate the HTML code of your signature. Highlight and copy everything starting from <BODY to </BODY> (included). Copy it to the clipboard or a text file: you will need it later.

Then, launch your Apple Mail and go to Mail > Preferences.

On the Signatures tab, select your email account in the leftmost column, add a new email signature using the + button and close the Mail App.

You may ask, “What about the signature?”. It needs to be added in a completely different way. Now comes the hard part. Click your Finder app.

Click the Go menu, hold your Command key and click Library. Remember that this directory will be hidden unless you hold the Command key.

Go to Mail > V8 > Mail Data > Signatures (the V8 folder can have a different number). In this folder, take a look at the Date Modified values and find the most recent file, ignoring the AllSignatures.plist and AccountsMap.plist ones. Your file will have a long ID and the .mailsignature extension. Right-click this file (or ctrl+click if you are the owner of a one-button mouse) to bring out the context menu. Choose Open With > Text Edit (the Notepad of Apple users).

Now, you need to delete everything below the line which starts with Mime-Version. Everything in the orange frame below should be deleted. Then, paste the HTML code from step 1.

After you paste the HTML code, go to File > Save and close TextEdit.

The next time you compose an email, you should be able to pick the new dark mode friendly email signature.

Written by Kamil

Published on Apr 02, 2021
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How to create a company-wide email signature in the new Exchange admin center

Microsoft 365 lets you set up email signatures and disclaimers for the entire company. The setup process includes the native mail-flow rule mechanism and the Append Disclaimer option. As a result, your company can centrally manage message footers, legal disclaimers, and email signatures in Microsoft 365. The problem is, the process includes a few steps which aren’t exactly intuitive if you are setting them up for the first time.

Set up organization-wide email signatures in Microsoft 365

That’s why we’ve created a step-by step video guide, which shows you how to easily set up email signatures in the new Exchange admin center.

And if you’d like to learn more about central management of email signatures in Microsoft 365, read on.

How does it work?

Mail flow rules used to set up an organization-wide email signatures are applied to messages when they are sent from your Microsoft 365 organization. Here’s how it works in practice:

A Microsoft 365 admin sets up the email signature rule in the Exchange admin center.
Users send emails, but they do not see any signatures in their email client.
Exchange Online adds the signatures to the bottom of each email sent, substituting AD placeholders with the user’s personal data.
The recipient gets the email with the signature applied.

The video shows how to add a unified email signature to all emails, but you can adapt the solution to your needs. Since mail flow rules include many different conditions and exceptions, you can use them to create different signature templates for various teams or even specific users.

Why manage email signatures centrally?

So, how is this better than letting users set up email signatures on their own?

Building and promoting your brand is a continuous process. Each interaction with your customers, leads or partners is an opportunity to promote your products and services or simply make a good impression. Unifying your email signatures helps you make sure that no such opportunity is lost due to user carelessness or lack of technical skills.

Learn more about the potential of your email signatures

Unless you leave the management of email signatures to your Marketing or Communications Team, you will not achieve consistent results. Some users will stray from the template you provide, while others will not set up the signature at all. There will also be those who encounter various technical problems during setup.

And even if all users manage to create their email signatures successfully, they will remain in charge of keeping everything up to date and updating them whenever needed. As a result, manual email signature setup becomes a major, extremely time-consuming distraction. Learn more

Managing email signatures in Microsoft 365 centrally allows you to turn every user into a brand ambassador. It also allows you to automate a rather uninteresting task, letting your employees focus on their own work instead.

The limitations of Microsoft 365 mail flow rules

Using mail flow rules to manage email signatures and disclaimers is better than letting users handle them on their own. The problem is, using mail flow rules to manage email signatures is not the perfect solution. There are numerous limitations of this native mechanism, for example:

Embedded images cannot be added to the signatures. This means that most recipients will not see any graphics when they first open your emails.
Signatures cannot be placed directly under the latest replies and forwards. They are applied at the very bottom of the conversation, which often renders them useless in longer email threads.
Users cannot see their signatures and disclaimers before they send their emails or in their Sent Items folders.
Outdated or empty AD fields cannot be replaced or omitted. As a result, if a user doesn’t have some attributes assigned, it is impossible to use a default value instead or remove the signaling phrase.

How to overome native limitations

You can overcome the native limitations and do much more by managing your email signatures via a dedicated service such as CodeTwo Email Signatures for Office 365. See the product’s page to learn more and test the service for free.

Written by Kamil

Published on Mar 09, 2021
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How to save an email signature as HTML

HTML is commonly used in emails and email signatures. Why? HTML lets you add appealing graphics to the email body or signature, use colors and text formatting. This makes your messages easier to read and nicer to look at. What’s more, every email can help maintain your brand identity and is more interesting for your recipients. But let’s focus on email signatures – you can also use HTML to save, store and share them with others. The beauty of this solution is that it lets you do this easily and retain all the original formatting.

Save-email-signature-as-HTML_Feature-image

Why use HTML email signatures

While there are different formats used in email signatures, like RTF and plain text, the email world is almost completely dominated by HTML. It’s not surprising. HTML is supported by most clients and allows you to add all kinds of elements to your email signatures: images, hyperlinks, social media buttons – all these can be easily implemented into an HTML email signature. And that’s not all. Since HTML isn’t even a programming language it’s quite easy to learn and use.

There are lots of reasons why you might want to save your email signature in the HTML format. Take a look at the most common ones:

Keep your signature for later use in an email client that does not support multiple email signatures at the same time.
Share your email signature with others to keep signatures uniform in an organization.
Export your current email signatures to another client/device.
Make formatting changes directly in HTML code to update a signature or test different designs.

It’s not all cupcakes and rainbows, though. There are some dark secrets and problems connected with HTML signatures. You see, while creating a basic email signature might be easy, there is an overwhelming number of different email clients. And all of them might have a slightly different way of understanding and processing code. That’s why the same signature may look perfect in Outlook and not so much in Gmail. You can minimize problems related to code interpretation by using the proper formatting of email signatures. Still, the easiest way to create a well-formatted email signature is to use a good, tried and tested template and edit it to your liking. That’s where knowing how to save an email signature as HTML comes in handy.

Create an HTML email signature

The first step is to create the signature itself. Before you do, a word of warning. It’s not the best idea to create your email signature in a word processing tool and copy it to your email client afterwards. Why? Word processing tools usually don’t operate on HTML code. So, when you copy a signature and paste it into an HTML-based editor, you copy a bunch of hidden formatting information. This will either make the signature look bad right away, or after you send out your emails.

The easiest way to create a proper, well-formatted signature is to use the free email signature generator. Simply pick a template:

Personalize the signature with your own graphics, contact details and other information:

Then, choose Thunderbird as your email platform and click Apply your signature > Generate > Copy to get the HTML code you’ll need for the next step.

Save and start using your HTML signature

Now that you have the HTML code you want, you should save your signature as an HTML file. It’s quite easy:

Paste the signature’s HTML code to a simple word processing tool, like Notepad and click File > Save as.

Choose the location and name your file. Make sure the file format is .html or .htm and not .txt. Leave the encoding as UTF-8, especially if you have any special characters in your signature.

Click Save.

To start using the signature in your email client, all you have to do is open the HTML file in your browser, copy the signature and paste it in your email client’s signature editor.

Edit an HTML email signature

Templates available at mail-signatures.com should work in most scenarios. However, there are some situations in which you may need to customize them further. For example, you may want to add additional elements, like a one-click CSAT survey, a Teams meeting link, a Zoom link or you may want to use a different set of social media icons.

There are two most common ways to customize your email signature template:

Copy the signature, paste it into a signature editor in your email client and work on it there.
Use the file you have saved and operate on the HTML code directly as discussed in this article on HTML in email signatures.

While the first method is usually more user friendly, how you go about it depends on your email client. Different clients have different editors, with slightly different controls. However, as opposed to most of these editors, the second method requires you to have at least some basic understanding of HTML.

Share your email signature with others

With your email signature conveniently saved as a HTML file, you can share it with your teammates or clients. You can send them the email signature file via email, as an attachment. Alternatively, you can host the HTML file and let others access and copy it using their browser.

All they need to do to start using the signature is open the file, copy the signature and paste it into their email signature editor.

One thing they should remember is to replace your personal information with theirs and that’s it.

How to manage email signatures in a company

Sharing HTML files is a good way to get consistent email signatures in your team. With a bit of effort from everyone, you can ensure a certain degree of uniformity in your email communications. However, the larger the team, the harder it is to make it work. And if you want your entire company to have unified email signatures, you’ll be surprised how quickly problems escalate and the whole thing becomes unmanageable. Take a look at this video, which explains the problems which may arise:

That’s why companies use email signature management tools to guarantee high communication and branding standards and while saving a lot of time and effort for their teams.

See also

Written by Kamil

Published on Sep 11, 2020
2 Comments | Leave a reply

A complete guide to mailto links in emails

Mailto links are hyperlinks which let you automatically open the default email client with a predefined recipient already typed in. Not everyone knows that in addition to the recipient, you can also define the subject, email body and cc fields of the new message. This lets you create contact links which make it easier to communicate with you. In this article, I’ll show you why it’s worth using mailto links in the first place, how you can use them and what their syntax is.

Continue reading →

Written by Kamil

Published on Jul 17, 2020
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How to set up an email signature in the built-in Mail app for Windows 10

Windows 10 Mail app is a lightweight email client which comes with Windows 10. While it’s not nearly as advanced or popular as Outlook, or Thunderbird, it gets its job done and has a fair share of users. Up until recently, it wasn’t possible to format email signatures in the Mail app the way you’d like. Fortunately, now you can add a great looking HTML email signature to your email instead of using the default “Sent from Mail for Windows 10”, or a sad, plain text signature.

Design a good HTML email signature

One of the tricks to having email signatures which look the same (or at least very similar) across email clients is using tables and in-line HTML styles. Unfortunately, Windows 10 Mail app only has a basic email signature editor which doesn’t let you do much formatting. If you want your signature to include your name, basic contact info and a logo, simply pasted in a single column, then there’s no need to worry. However, if apart from contact details, you’d like to add social media buttons and format the whole thing in a pleasant way, you will need to design your email signature in another editor and then paste it to the Mail app for Windows 10.

The easiest way to create a good-looking email signature is to use our free email signature generator or download one of our free email signature templates. If you are using the generator, just leave the default email platform (Outlook) and follow the guidelines in the tool to make your own HTML email signature. When you apply your signature, and copy the signature to clipboard, you can start adding it to Windows 10 Mail app.

If you want to roll up your sleeves and create an HTML email signature from scratch, here are some articles which can help you get this done:

Once you have your HTML email signature ready and copied to clipboard, it’s time to set it up in the Mail app.

Add an HTML email signature to Windows 10 Mail app

The process is pretty straight-forward. Mind that this email client doesn’t allow you to use multiple email signatures or different signatures for replies and forwarded messages.

I’m using Windows 10 Mail Version 16005.12827.20560.0 configured with a Microsoft 365 account. Although the Inbox looks a bit differently for Gmail and Outlook.com accounts configured in Windows 10 Mail app, I’ve tested it and email signatures are configured exactly the same for both email services.

First, you need to launch your Windows 10 Mail app:

Go to Settings (the ⚙ icon at the bottom) and choose Signature from the menu on the right side of the window:

Signature settings in Windows 10 Mail app

This opens the signature editor in Windows 10 Mail app. Make sure that the Use an email signature option is On and that the drop-down points to the right email account, if you have more than one configured. The editor has some basic formatting options available and the default “Sent from Mail for Windows 10” signature is already set up. Delete that text and paste your email signature (Ctrl+A, followed by Ctrl+V should to the trick, provided you have copied the signature to the clipboard).

Once your signature is in the editor, you can make some adjustments. Check for typos, see if links work correctly. As you can see below, your signature might not fit entirely into the tiny editor pane, so let’s check how it looks in an actual email.

Paste email signature to your Windows 10 Mail editor

When you create a new email (or reply or forward an existing one) the signature will be there just the way you wanted it to be:

Windows 10 Mail app new email with signature

After you set up your signature in the Mail app in Windows 10 (or any other email client), it’s best to send an email with your signature to yourself first to see if your images look well and if there are no formatting issues.

How to handle email signatures company-wide

Setting up an email signature for a single email client is not that hard, especially when you use a well-crafted template as your starting point. The thing is different when you think about email signatures on a company level. Companies that care about their brand identity and visual identity need to unify their email signatures. This will allow them to build their brand with one of the most commonly used communication channels – emails.

How difficult is it to deploy email signatures in a company

While manual deployment of unified email signatures is possible, it’s not easy to set up or maintain. Especially when employees can use various email clients and devices for email communication.

That’s why we came up with tools for email signature management which make designing and deploying email signatures for the whole company a child’s play, saving you a lot of time and resources.

See also:

Written by Kamil

Published on May 15, 2020
0 Comments | Leave a reply

Email signature ideas in the home office age

Have you updated your email signature because of the covid-19? After seeing thousands of coronavirus-related newsletters and articles, you may be wondering if it’s a good idea to make any changes to your signature template. The answer is simple: it is. The article below shows some email signature ideas. Get inspired and adapt your email signature to the increasing home office situation caused by coronavirus. You won’t save the world just by updating your email signature, but you can make a difference, one email at a time.

Why change your signature?

There are quite a few reasons to change your signature now. With many companies switching to remote work, email communication becomes even more frequent. It’s quite natural to have a larger number of recipients. That’s why you may (and should) use your email signatures to include important information.

You can use this opportunity to, for example, spread good health practices, highlight your preferred contact method or share good news we all need right now.

Apart from that, if you don’t refresh your signatures’ design from time to time, it gradually becomes less and less visible. Even changing your banner can make your recipients more interested in what you want to share. Now is a good time to revisit your design.

Ideas on how to change your signature

Include informational banners

To help #flattenthecurve, one of the highest priorities is to stay well-informed and follow directions of health authorities. Limiting the spread of the virus can save health and lives. If you want to help and show that you care, include an informational banner in your email signature. It can make a difference.

CodeTwo provides free animated banners with the most important guidelines to follow during the coronavirus outbreak. Various designs make it easy to implement such a banner in your email signature. Including such an image and linking it to the official WHO page can help people stay informed, safe and, not least important, panic-free. Download free banners.

We also designed two sets of email signature designs with informational banners that you can use:

Our email signature templates are completely free for both business and personal use. Add your branding and they are ready to go.

Keep your customers informed

Ways to limit the spread of the virus is not the only piece of information you should transmit to your recipients. Your customers will look for information on how you manage to continue providing your services.

If you change the way your business operates, make any changes to when your offices are open, launch additional services or limit accessibility of your offices – email signature is a perfect place to mention it. Most customers want to be informed if your business is operating as usual, or if there are any changes. Linking to a landing page which provides more information should satisfy any interested customer.

Promotional banners

Before you launch your new campaigns, a word of advice. Building your brand or offerings on the current situation is a double-edged sword. You don’t want your brand to be associated with the “benefiting on human disaster” phrase.

Still, if you offer services or products which can help during these troubling times, a promotional banner is a good idea. After all, people look for such products and services more than ever. If you create content or take any other actions to help limit the spread of coronavirus, linking to your blog or related page might help more people reach this information.

Link to the preferred contact method

It’s crucial to highlight the contact channel which is best for reaching you. If you provide demos online, consider adding a scheduling link to your email signature. If you prefer your customers reaching out at WhatsApp, add a link to WhatsApp chat. It is also possible to create a scheduling or chat link to Teams by using deep links, or add Zoom meeting invitations to your signatures.

Stay safe!

Here, at mail-signatures.com, we all wish you and all your near and dear ones the best of health. Stay home if you can and follow the health guidelines and lifestyle recommendations mentioned above to stay safe and keep yourself in shape.

Written by Kamil

Published on Apr 03, 2020
6 Comments | Leave a reply

Help #FlattenTheCurve with free COVID-19 email signature templates

If you want to do your part to help #FlattenTheCurve, you can use our free email signature templates. They include dedicated static and animated banners with WHO-based guidelines on how to help limit the spread of coronavirus. Click the links below to get more info about each COVID-19 email signature template, download it or customize it using our free email signature generator. Either way, you’ll get instructions on how to implement the selected signature in the most common email clients and platforms.

Help flatten the curve with free covid-19 email signatures

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Written by Kamil

Published on Feb 07, 2020
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Signature line for email – all about short email signatures

Are short email signatures, sometimes called email signature lines, a good choice if you care about branding in your everyday email communication? In this article, I’ll try to explain why, how and when it’s better to use a compact email signature layout instead of a sophisticated, complex signature template.

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Written by Kamil

Published on Jan 29, 2020
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How to design an email signature and disclaimer for a lawyer

Is there really anything special about email signatures for lawyers or attorneys? Actually, there is. Email signatures are like your digital business cards, only they tend to last longer than their paper equivalents. Lawyers send a considerable number of emails all the time and if their signature isn’t perfect, their reputation is at stake. If you want to learn how to design a good email signature for an attorney or see a sample lawyer’s email disclaimer, read on.

How to design a perfect email signature for a lawyer

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How to add an HTML email signature in Apple Mail – the easy way

How to add an HTML email signature in Apple Mail – the hard way

Read more

How does it work?

Why manage email signatures centrally?

The limitations of Microsoft 365 mail flow rules

How to overome native limitations

Why use HTML email signatures

Create an HTML email signature

Save and start using your HTML signature

Edit an HTML email signature

Share your email signature with others

How to manage email signatures in a company

Design a good HTML email signature

Add an HTML email signature to Windows 10 Mail app

How to handle email signatures company-wide

Why change your signature?

Ideas on how to change your signature

Include informational banners

Keep your customers informed

Promotional banners

Link to the preferred contact method

Stay safe!