Free email signature generator

How to create an email signature

1. 1

   Fill in your details

   Name, role and the one or two ways you actually want to be contacted.

2. 2

   Pick a layout and colour

   Five layouts, three type presets and any accent colour. The preview updates as you go.

3. 3

   Copy the signature

   One click puts the formatted signature on your clipboard.

4. 4

   Paste it into your mail app

   Gmail, Outlook or Apple Mail. Follow the short guide for yours and save.

The whole thing takes two or three minutes. Once the signature is saved in your mail app, every message you send carries it, so it is worth getting right once rather than tweaking every week.

What should a professional email signature include?

Less than most people put in. A signature is there so the reader can identify you and reach you, and every extra line dilutes that. The useful set is:

• Your full name, as you would introduce yourself, not a username.
• Job title and company, so you are still identifiable when the email is forwarded to someone who has never met you.
• Email address. It feels redundant, but it survives forwarding and copy-paste when the header does not.
• Phone number, only if you want to be called. Leaving it off is a legitimate choice.
• One website. The destination you would send a new contact to first.
• Only the social profiles you use for work. LinkedIn for most people. A row of six icons reads as a footer, not a signature.

Optional: a photo or logo, a location if you meet clients in person, and a short legal line if your industry requires one. Skip inspirational quotes, large banners and anything animated.

Email signature examples

One example per template, 17 in all, produced by the same code that builds your signature. Use them as templates: pick the one closest to your role, then swap in your details. The 5 in the generator above are ready to use right now; the other 12 come with a free account.

Gmail email signatures

Copy your signature, then in Gmail click the gear icon, choose See all settings, and scroll to Signature on the General tab. Click Create new, name it, paste into the box, set it as the default for new emails and replies, and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Two things worth knowing. An image stored only in your browser may not appear reliably once the signature is pasted or sent, so for Gmail use a picture hosted at a URL, or save your signature to a free Blyn account and let it host the picture. And Gmail’s signature editor sometimes drops rounded corners, so a round photo can paste as a square. The text, links and layout are unaffected.

For desktop, Android, iPhone and iPad instructions, multiple sending addresses and common fixes, use our complete guide to adding a signature in Gmail.

Outlook email signatures

In the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web, open Settings, then Accounts, then Signatures, and paste there. Microsoft moved this: signatures used to sit under Mail, Compose and reply, and most guides still send you to that menu. In classic desktop Outlook the path is File, Options, Mail, Signatures. Either way, set the signature for replies and forwards as well as for new messages — they are separate settings.

Full steps for every version, including Outlook for Mac and the phone apps, are in our guide to adding a signature in Outlook, along with fixes for the image not showing and the signature missing from replies.

Rendering differs between Outlook versions. Classic Outlook on Windows uses Microsoft Word’s engine, which ignores some modern CSS, so photos may render square and spacing can shift by a few pixels. The generator includes the table-based fallbacks desktop Outlook needs, so the structure holds, but do send yourself a test email after installing rather than assuming it matches the preview.

Apple Mail email signatures

On a Mac, open Mail, then Settings, Signatures. Select the account, click the plus button, and paste into the right-hand box. Untick Always match my default message font, or Mail will replace the signature’s fonts with your default. It saves automatically when you close the window. Apple Mail usually keeps a picture chosen from your device, though a hosted one is safer.

On iPhone and iPad, Mail’s signature field is plain text only. Set the HTML signature on a Mac and let it sync through iCloud, or accept a text-only signature on the phone.

What size should an email signature be?

Compact. A good working limit is around 500 to 600 pixels wide on desktop and no more than five or six short lines tall, with a photo or logo somewhere between 70 and 110 pixels. Wider than that and the signature forces a phone to scroll sideways; taller and it takes over short replies, where the message can be one line and the signature eight.

Every layout here stays inside those bounds, and the multi-column ones stack when the screen is narrow instead of overflowing. The Compact layout exists for people who want the signature to be one or two lines and nothing more.

Should you use an image in your email signature?

It depends on where the image lives and who you email. A few things are true across every client:

• Hosted images are the reliable option. A picture at an https address on your own site loads everywhere images are allowed, including Gmail.
• Pictures from this generator stay in your browser. When you pick a photo from your device it is embedded in the signature rather than uploaded, and images stored only in your browser may not appear reliably when the signature is pasted or sent. Saving your signature to a free Blyn account hosts the picture so it shows everywhere.
• Many recipients block images by default. Corporate Outlook in particular. Your name, role and contact details should read fine with the picture missing, which is why the layouts never put text inside an image.
• Keep it small. A 70 to 110 pixel headshot or logo. A full-width banner is the single most common cause of signatures that look broken on phones.

Email signature best practices

• Keep it compact. Name, role, one or two contact routes, done.
• Limit social icons to the profiles you would actually want a client to open. Usually one or two.
• Stick to fonts every device has. Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Trebuchet. A web font will silently fall back to Times New Roman in half your recipients’ inboxes. The three presets here are all email-safe.
• Make the website link meaningful. Point it at the page a new contact should see first, not a generic homepage if there is something better.
• Check the plain-text version. Some clients and most screen readers use it. The Copy button puts a text version on the clipboard alongside the formatted one.
• Send yourself a test. Install it, email yourself, and open it on your phone. A preview in a browser is not the same as a real inbox.
• Leave promotional clutter out. Banners, badges, quotes and “sent from my phone” lines all compete with the one thing the signature is for.

One more, if you print business cards: keep the two consistent. The same name, title and contact details on the card as in the signature. Our free business card QR code generator makes a scannable contact code for the card, using the same details.

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