Using social media icons in an email signature is a must if you want to compete in today’s digitalized world. A company that doesn’t have at least one social media account, may look like it doesn’t even exist in eyes of potential customers. Companies gain trust by posting regularly, by being available and responsive on social media. Including your email communication in the social media strategy is a perfect way to take advantage of all branding and marketing opportunities. And there’s no easier way than simply adding social media icons to your company’s email signature.
[Update]: This article was first published on September 15, 2015. It was completely rewritten to reflect current trends and changes in email signature branding best practices.
We’ve seen how professional, visual-identity-compatible email signatures have evolved from a new trend to marketing and branding basics. Now, only the most conservative companies stick to the old ways and insist on including only first and last name in their email signatures. Most companies have recognized the potential of email signatures for marketing and branding purposes. I’ll show you how best to realize this potential.
The cost of unprofessional email signatures
Email signatures have become more than just a regular, tiny detail of corporate identity. They’re included in every single email every employee sends. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a tech company or not – as long as you send emails, people will judge you based on what your company’s email signatures look like. It shows how much attention the company pays to communication with prospects and partners.
In other words, if your email signature includes, for example:
broken links,
social media buttons linking to dead profiles or platforms (G+, anyone?),
outdated contact info,
broken images,
movie quotes,
just your name,
broken layout,
recipients will automatically assume that this aspect is out of your company’s control. And it’s quite natural to take assumptions a step further and think that it may not be the only thing beyond control. You lose trust and valuable marketing opportunities. But let’s not focus on what you can lose – let’s see what you can gain.
Advantages of professional email signatures
For ‘not convinced’ ones, let’s see what kind of information you may disclose when you send an email with your optimized signature.
Basic contact details, such as your name, job title, branch, company, phone number, email, location, etc.,
The above-mentioned options stand for who you are, who you are working for and what you do. But that’s hardly all you can do with email signatures. You can also include:
While adding all of those elements into one signature at the same time is not the best plan, the above list should give you an idea on how much you can do with each email your employees send. The elements you add to signature should go with what you want to focus on and who is the final recipient of your message. Keep in mind that a potential customer will use the signature to gain insight about you (as a company). This might be a point where they decide to engage or withdraw from further interaction.
Enhance your company’s visual identity
In general, visual identity is a base on which you build your brand trust. It’s the message you want to send to everyone who interacts with your company. If you want to boost your branding, the signature needs to communicate the same message and comply with your business identity.
Marketing strategies
Marketers have come to a point in which effective brand promotion is harder than ever. Your target audience often turns a blind eye to advertisements as a rule, use ad blockers, or the campaign simply doesn’t reach them. And there’s no point in great promotional offers if nobody knows about them. Fortunately, email signature marketing lets you bypass those limitations. Most of your recipients are not random people – you know which campaigns can be of their interest. And if you set up the email signature right, marketing banners will always be noticed.
As for the specific elements, your choice will depend on what you want to achieve. Social media links, article links or feeds could show your audience that you provide valuable content on a regular basis (hope you do!). This less direct way of promoting your services or products tends to be effective, since recipients aren’t feeling they are forced to click on your links.
Where to start with email signature branding?
Every journey starts with a single step. In case of email signature marketing, you need to design the signature before doing anything else. There are quite a few difficulties you might face at this point.
After reading the first part, you probably have some ideas on what to include in this branding-friendly and visually optimized email signature of yours. You have the visual identity sorted out and all the needed images are sitting there, ready to shine. Now comes the specific layout of the signature – how to arrange all this data, so that it looks good? And then, you need to convert this signature into HTML, making sure it won’t break in various email clients.
For most people that’s a bit too much. That’s why we’ve brought to you a completely free email signature generator. It lets you easily create professional HTML email signatures, even if you don’t know what HTML code is. And if you just need some inspiration, our signature template gallery lets you download pre-made templates and re-design them however you see fit.
After you’re done, you get a well-designed template for email signature branding purposes. The thing with visual identity and branding is that it doesn’t apply to a single employee only – for the good changes to take an actual effect, they need to be company-wide. So, the final thing is to get a personalized version of this email signature for everyone in the company.
How to set up email signatures for the whole organization?
When setting up signatures for an entire company, you might face some challenges, as the video below shows:
Now you can see, it’s not as simple as it sounds. So, if you need to manage email signatures for all employees, you might need to use a dedicated tool. This way, you could, for example:
ensure unified company-wide branding with no end-user interaction required,
deploy email signatures for all email clients and mobile devices with a few clicks (no HTML knowledge needed),
make sure your branding and marketing content always gets through, thanks to embedded images,
customize signature rules, so that different departments can have different signature elements (while following your visual identity guidelines),
make instant updates to all email signatures at once.
It might be the right time to take your email signature branding to the next level with award-winning solutions.
The celebration time for all Americans is about to begin as the 4th of July is just round the corner. Why is this date so important? Well, something huge happened in American history on that day – back in 1776, the United States declared its independence from Great Britain.
Fourth of July 2022 email signature templates
There are many ways Americans honor this national holiday. Firework displays, picnics, barbecues, and parades are great ideas for outdoor celebrations. To show your festive mood in a professional setting, we encourage you to use one of these free signature templets in your email conversations.
Simplicity and elegance
It’s just classic. A great fit for any business that wants their emails look neat and simple, yet fully compliant. This professional signature template has four clearly distinguished blocks of information. The first one emphasizes user’s name, job title and company website. The second one presents users photo, contact details and social media icons. Then, the Independence Day banner designed specifically for this occasion adds a nice festive feeling to business correspondence. The last part of this template is a disclaimer, an essential element for ensuring legal compliance.
A very similar structure to the previous signature template, but this one brings social media links and like-in-motion marketing banner with the popular theme of the waving flag of the United States into focus. The banner will help you promote any special offers you prepared for your customers to celebrate the Fourth of July. Add a link to the banner to let everyone quickly land on your website or online store.
This signature template was designed to satisfy subtle tastes. It lets you celebrate the 4th of July in your email conversations, but keep it low-key. The company logo and details of the sender are the most visible part of the signature. The casual and inviting style of this template makes it a great fit for most professions.
Make it visible, make it enjoyable. Celebrate Independence Day with this fireworks display signature template. Bring fun to the office. Although the banner may look bold, the template itself looks professional and has all the necessary company details, with special attention paid to social media icons. Having this in mind, the template is a prefect choice for companies which extensively use social media and want everyone to quickly get to their official profiles for further interaction.
[Update]: This article was first published on March 15, 2016. It’s been updated to reflect the current steps required to set up an email signature on respective platforms.
Back in the day, when Exchange 2016 was released, OWA was replaced with a brand new and shiny Outlook on the web, known from Office 365 (or Microsoft 365, as the name also changed in the meantime). Since then, Outlook on the web went through some visual upgrades, but there wasn’t another name change (yet). What’s interesting is that despite the same name used for both on-premises (Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019) and cloud environments, those Outlook versions are a bit different. Even though both clients are similar when it comes to setting up signatures, there are some noticeable differences. One of them is the path to the email signature editor.
Microsoft Outlook is the go-to email client for most businesses and enterprises. This is no surprise, as it has been around for decades and managed to become the ‘gold standard’ of this software category in the meantime. Outlook has evolved a lot since its first appearance, leading to its supposedly final form, “Outlook 365”. In this article, I’m going to quickly explain what Outlook 365 stands for and how to set up email signatures in this Microsoft-365-powered email client.
Outlook 365: Outlook for Microsoft 365 vs Outlook on the web (OWA)
It might come as a bit of a surprise, but officially, there’s no such thing as “Outlook 365”. There are two Outlook versions which this name may relate to: Outlook for Microsoft 365 and Outlook on the web. Both come as a part of the Microsoft 365 subscription, which is probably the reason why so many users came to name them “Outlook 365”. This can be very confusing, especially since the name doesn’t explain whether the user means the app installed locally or the webmail version. The name stuck nonetheless and nowadays can be found all over the Internet, including tech community forums and specialist websites.
To be precise, Outlook for Microsoft 365 is the version of the app installed on desktop or laptop computers. It’s the most recent iteration, originating from a long line of apps included in Microsoft Office suites and standalone programs, so you might say it’s the longest known, as it brings to the table all the features and improvements implemented over the years.
Outlook on the web, on the other hand, is the webmail version of Outlook, allowing you to access your email account through your web browser. Besides being part of a Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s also available for organizations using on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 & 2019. By the way, the name “Outlook on the web” is being used interchangeably with “OWA”. The abbreviation actually stands for “Outlook Web App”, which was the official name of the app used with Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 & 2010, formerly called “Outlook Web Access” in case of Microsoft Exchange Server versions older than 2010. The biggest difference in comparison to Outlook for Microsoft 365 is that you don’t have to install anything on your computer or mobile device to use Outlook on the web.
Now, let’s dive in and have a look at individual processes of setting up email signatures in Outlook for Microsoft 365 and Outlook on the web.
Outlook for Microsoft 365
Follow the steps below to set up an email signature in the desktop Outlook 365:
Open the Outlook for PC app from the Start menu or from the taskbar.
In Outlook, click New Email (or use the Ctrl + N key combination) to open a new message window.
Next, click Signature in the Include group and choose Signatures.
Note: Another way to start configuring your email signatures is to go to File (on the ribbon) > Options. Next, in the Outlook Options window, select the Mail tab and click Signatures in the Compose messages section.
In the Signatures and Stationery window, click New and provide a name for your signature.
Create your signature in the Edit signature section. Use available formatting tools to modify its appearance.
Note: The formatting tools offered in the Outlook signature editor are quite basic. If you wish to achieve a more sophisticated and polished design, you can use a free email signature generator to create an advanced signature template. Simply choose Outlook as the target email platform, select one of the many available templates, adjust it to your needs and there you go. Your signature is ready to be copied and pasted into the Outlook editor.
The Choose default signature section can be used to define which email account should get the signature (in case there is more than one email account set up in Outlook), and whether it should be added to new messages and/or replies/forwards. Once you are done, save changes by clicking OK.
In case you selected your signature to be treated as default for new messages, you will see it every time you compose a new email.
Note: If you didn’t select your signature as the default one, you will still be able to add it manually every time you write a new email. It will be available after clicking the Signature button in the Include group.
That’s all there is to it. If you wish to create more Outlook signatures, simply follow the steps from point 3 onwards. You can create as many of them as you need – they will appear on a list visible after clicking the aforementioned Signature button.
Outlook on the web
The steps required to configure email signatures in the ”Outlook 365” webmail client are a bit different than in case of the desktop app:
Open your Outlook on the web either by selecting the Outlook App in your Office home page, or by using this direct link.
Click the Gear icon in the top-right corner and select View all Outlook settings.
In the navigation pane on the left, go to Mail > Compose and reply. You can also use this direct link to reach the signature editor panel. Use the provided editor box to enter your signature text, apply formatting as well as to add images or links.
Note: If you wish to achieve a more refined appearance, you can use a free email signature generator with lots of advanced signature templates that you can fill in with all the necessary details and copy into the editor box in Outlook on the web.
The two drop-down menus under the signature editor let you decide whether the created signature should be added automatically to your new messages and replies/forwards respectively.
Note: It is possible to create and use multiple signatures for a single mailbox – similarly to the Outlook desktop client. Just click the New signature button after you have saved your first signature to create another one.
Once you are done, save changes and close the settings window.
If you select your signature(s) in one of or in both drop-down menus, it will appear in the compose message window as you type your email in the appropriate scenario. In case you left the menus’ default settings (No signature), you will still be able to add your signature manually while composing email.
Limitations of signatures set up by users
As you can see in the above guides, setting up a professional email signature is a fully manual process. From the company’s viewpoint, it comes with some limitations and risks:
If a company cares about their brand and wants to have unified look of their emails, the process needs to be repeated individually for or by everyone within the organization. It’s highly time-consuming, especially when you consider some less proficient users who will require support to properly apply their signatures. Not to mention the recurring efforts in case of any signature updates in the future.
The more users requiring signatures, the higher the risk of incomplete or outdated data, inconsistent design, missing legally required information (no disclaimers or company data).
Creating original, visually appealing (and working properly across different email clients and devices) signatures requires advanced HTML and CSS skills.
Nothing stops users from using wrong personal information or applying custom layout.
Being aware of those limitations, you may want to change the way email signatures are managed in your organization. Instead of leaving this task to users, many companies decide to manage email signatures centrally.
Central management of email signatures
Building and promoting a company’s brand is a continuous process and every employee interacting with customers or business partners needs to be seen as a brand ambassador. Email correspondence takes up a considerable part of that professional interaction, therefore email signatures should not be underestimated. They are a powerful way to convey the sender’s professionalism and tell the recipients whether the organization cares about its image.
Managing email signatures centrally ensures that they are kept under control and stay up-to-date, consistent in design and aesthetic and are personalized across the whole company. This way, email signatures can be carefully crafted (and implemented organization-wide) to send a strong message that helps the brand, promotes offers and supports the business.
It also allows for automation of a rather unexciting task, letting employees focus on their own work instead. Not to mention getting rid of issues connected to user carelessness or lack of technical skills.
Central management via Exchange Online
Exchange Online allows for central management of email signatures and disclaimers for the entire Microsoft 365 organization. It is possible to set up email signatures and legal disclaimers, which are added to email messages that enter or leave your organization. To achieve this, it is necessary to create a mail flow rule (with the Append the disclaimer action specified) that adds the required information to email messages. And since mail flow rules may include many different conditions and exceptions, it is also possible to create separate signature templates for different departments or even specific users.
However, the process might turn out to be troublesome for someone doing this for the first time. That is why we’ve prepared a short video guide explaining:
How to set up an email signature rule in the Exchange admin center.
Where to get the HTML code with Active Directory placeholders for the signature template.
How the global email signatures work from the user’s perspective.
What the limitations of signature rules are.
What tricks are possible to make the signature-adding-rule more useful.
Besides the Exchange admin center, it is also possible to achieve similar results using PowerShell and VBScript. The immediate drawback of these two methods is that the former only works for Outlook on the web (OWA) and the latter only for the desktop client.
Limitations
Although those management methods are better than setting up all email clients separately, they are still not perfect. They come with a lot of limitations:
Lack of a dedicated, user-friendly HTML editor.
No automatic users’ photos in email signatures.
Delegation of signature management is impossible.
Signatures don’t show up directly under replies/forwards.
It’s not possible to use embedded images.
Signatures not visible while typing or in Sent Items.
Blank spaces in signatures in case of missing Active Directory values.
Central management via CodeTwo Email Signatures 365
While the above list seems a long one, overcoming all those limitations is easier than you might think. Although they cannot be fixed natively, a dedicated tool, such as CodeTwo Email Signatures 365, can solve all related issues and do much more for your Microsoft 365 email signatures.
The service reinvents handling email signatures in Microsoft 365 organizations:
Manage all signatures centrally You can use a single rule to apply personalized email signatures to everyone in a Microsoft 365 organization. Signatures are added to emails sent from every device and email client. You can adjust signature templates to look differently for chosen departments or users.
WYSIWYG HTML template editor Easily create advanced email signatures that work on all email clients and mobile devices, automatically convert your signatures into HTML, Plain Text and RTF formats, insert Active Directory placeholders, edit signature layout, change colors and fonts, insert images, logos or Microsoft 365 users’ photos, etc.
Signatures visible while composing emails and in user’s Sent Items folders CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 is the first email signature management software for Microsoft 365 that allows you to preview signatures that will be added in the cloud and to display signatures in users’ Sent Items folders across various devices and email clients.
Support for Entra ID fields and custom attributes Besides the fields available in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory), you can add custom attributes that are not available in Entra ID, or you can let your end users update their signature information themselves (without impact on the original values stored in Entra ID).
Embedded logos and images Add company logo and marketing banners as inline attachments. This way, images are not blocked by recipients’ email clients on receiving an email.
User photos in email signatures Add Microsoft 365 users’ photos to email signatures.
Hyperlinks or simply links are at the core of the Internet. They allow you to instantly travel between different places of the Web, or, for example, start a call by clicking on a phone number. Nowadays, links are not limited to websites – they are common in email communications, too. In this article, I am going show you how you can enrich your email signature with different types of links.
Why use links in your signature
An email signature is a perfect carrier of your contact data. Adding a website, blog, or social media links to an email signature lets your recipients conveniently access these resources. Thanks to that, signatures become more interactive and… attractive.
Additionally, you can now use other link types which can facilitate communications between you and your recipients, e.g. ones that let your recipients directly contact you over the phone or an instant messenger.
In general, hyperlinks are an essential element of contemporary email signatures. Using them lets you stay up-to-date with the latest trends, and ensure effective and fruitful communications.
How to make use of links in your signature
In this section, I am going to show you how to add various link types to your email signature. Each type serves a different purpose but, in the end, it all comes down to making your communications more convenient for your recipients.
How to insert a link to a website
A simple, quick, and free way to start is to use our signature generator. Once you choose a template, you can easily add a link to your website, by typing its address in the Website field of the Company Data section. The change will be reflected in the preview and the link will be preformatted to suit the color theme of the signature template. You will be also able to test your link immediately.
If you need more personalization options, copy your signature template from the generator by clicking Apply your signature (see screenshot above) and Copy. Below the Copy button you will see detailed instructions on how to paste the template into your email client’s editor.
In the examples below, I’ll use Outlook 365 but you should easily grasp how to do it in other email clients, as procedures are quite similar.
Going back to the gist (and Outlook 365), if you simply want to change formatting of your link (e.g. color, apply bold, etc.), highlight your website address and use one of the options available in the Outlook’s editor. You can format any link in your email signature in the same fashion.
If you don’t want your recipients to see merely your website address but prefer to use a phrase (e.g. Visit our website) which will be linked, you need to first delete your website address from the signature. Next, enter the phrase (to be linked) and highlight it. Finally, click the button for adding a hyperlink (#2 in the screenshot below), type/paste your website address in the dialog that opens, and click OK. Save your signature template, and close the Outlook’s signature editor.
Keep in mind that Outlook’s editor will change link’s formatting to the default one (blue font with underline applied). So, to finally personalize your linked phrase’s appearance according to your needs, highlight it and use the formatting tools shown in the previous screenshot above.
If you need to insert more links, simply move the cursor to a place where a link is to be inserted, click the button for adding a hyperlink, and fill in all the details (address, text to display). As simple as that.
How to use additional link types
Apart from common website hyperlinks, you can use special types of links that link to phone number, email address or an instant messenger app. Such links are very useful – once clicked or tapped, they automatically take your recipients to an appropriate app, inserting relevant contact information of yours. For example, if someone clicks a link to your email address, their default email client will open with your email address inserted in the To field. Or when a recipient clicks a link to your phone number, a phone app will open with your phone number dialed. This is especially convenient when your recipient reads emails on their mobile phone.
To make use of this type of links, prepare your signature template in our free email signature generator, and next copy and paste it into the signature editor of your email client (e.g. Outlook 365, as shown in the previous section).
Create a link to an email address
Signature editors of the most popular email clients (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Outlook.com, Gmail.com) usually use smart features to automatically turn the email address in your signature into a link to your email address. However, if your client doesn’t offer such smart solutions or, for whatever reason, fails to apply them, proceed with the instructions below.
Highlight your email address and click the link-adding button. Next, select E-mail Address on the left and in the E-mail address field type mailto: immediately followed by your email address. Optionally, you may provide a phrase which will link to your email address by changing the text in the Text to display field. Finally, click OK, save your signature template, and close the signature editor.
This is the most basic version of the email hyperlink. However, there are many more possibilities (e.g. you can add a predefined email body text). To learn more, read this article.
Create a link to a phone number
Creating a phone hyperlink is fairly similar to the email one. After highlighting the phone number in your signature and clicking the button to insert link, you need to choose Existing File or Web Page on the left and type tel: immediately followed by your phone number. Remember to precede your phone number with the plus sign (+) and your country code. That way, your recipients will be able to reach you over the phone, regardless of which country they call you from.
Examples of other useful link types
Apart from the most popular mailto: and tel: link types, there is also a bunch of other ones, e.g. callto: which initiates a Skype call or sms: which allows your recipients to go straight to their SMS app to send you a text message. Remember, however, that these may not be supported that well and may not always work as intended. Learn more
How to add a link to an image
If your email signature template includes a photo or any other graphical element, you can add a link to it as well. That way, for example, when your recipient clicks your banner, they will be taken to your special offer landing page.
The easiest way to link an image in a chosen signature template, is to use the Graphics section in our free email signature generator. Once there, you need to provide your link(s) in the …linking to field(s). As a result, the images will become linked, clickable elements.
Alternatively, you can add a link to a graphical element in your email client’s editor. This is done similar to adding a basic link to a text. Once your template is copied into the editor, highlight your graphical element and click the link-adding button (#2 in the screenshot below). In the dialog window that opens, type/paste the target address. Finally, save your changes and close the editor.
That’s not the end of the story
This is just the basics. If you’re into HTML (the language of modern signature templates), there’s much more you can do with links. For example, you can download a selected template from mail-signatures.com, manually modify every element of hyperlink’s code, and insert the fully-customized template into your email client.
And when you need professional-grade features and personalization options that can be applied to all mailboxes in your company, you can always test the signature management software that lets you use links that dynamically change from user to user or can be used to track your email marketing campaigns performance. It all depends on your needs.
[Update]: This article was updated on September 13, 2021.
Creating and adding your email signature to Apple Mail (or Mac Mail, whichever name you like more) 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
[UPDATE]: We’ve updated our free email signature generator with a dedicated option for Apple Mail. There’s no longer any need to browse through the file system or paste HTML code directly into text files. You’re welcome.
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, choose Apple Mail 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 Apple Mail.
Then, 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). Note that the signature won’t look right in the Apple Mail’s editor at this point – don’t worry about that.
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).
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Now you have a professional email signature in your Apple Mail client. But what if you want everyone in your company to get a similar signature? You could rinse and repeat the whole procedure for everyone, but it might take you ages to complete such a task. Especially, if some users use more than one email client. That’s why I saved the best method for last.
Organization-wide email signature management (the easiest way)
If your company uses Microsoft 365 or Exchange Server as the email platform, you can manage email signatures for everyone, the smart way. No matter what email clients are used, no matter how many users there are, you can deploy signatures to everyone in a matter of minutes. Whether it’s Apple Mail, Outlook for iOS, or any other client used on any other device, email signature management tools let you provide instant updates to the signatures in your company.
CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 – the #1 email signature solution for Microsoft 365 tenants. With this flexible web-based email signature service, you can manage your Microsoft 365 signatures easily from any device. It can be integrated with web analytics tools, CSAT survey tools and meeting scheduling solutions, and it is the first among competition to use the newest technologies to help you manage your branding effectively.
CodeTwo Exchange Rules – the best signature solution if you use Exchange Server. It lets you change a simple email signature into an effective marketing channel. And if you want to do much more than just manage email signatures, it includes a Pro variant which gives you full control over your mail flow.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
