Email signature generator

How to make an email signature in four steps

1. Fill in your details. Type your name, job title, company, phone, mobile, email, website and address. Empty fields are left out. Add up to five social links. A logo is optional and goes in as an image link only.
2. Choose a template and a color. Pick one of the six templates, then set the accent color and one of the two safe fonts. Choose English or Spanish labels, or switch labels off. The default template needs no image.
3. Check the preview and the checks list. Look at the light, dark and phone previews, then read the checks. They count characters against Gmail's limit, flag a logo link that is not https and test link colors. Fix anything marked.
4. Copy it and paste it into your email program. Press the copy button and paste into your signature box. The sections below show where that box is. For a phone app, copy the plain text instead. Then send yourself a test.

What to put in a signature, and what to leave out

A signature is a short block of contact details at the bottom of your emails. A short one gets read, and a long one gets skipped.

• Your name, job title and company.
• One or two phone numbers, written as tel: links so a phone can tap to call.
• Your email address and your website.
• Two or three social links at most.
• A small logo, if you have one.

Leave out quotes, long slogans, several logos and animated images. The tool writes no legal disclaimer. If your company requires specific wording, add it yourself.

Why the signature is built from tables and text

Email is not a web page. Classic Outlook for Windows draws email with Word's engine, which ignores much of the CSS that websites use. So all six templates are built from nested tables with inline styles only: no div layout, no style block, no flexbox, no float and no background images. The width is capped at 520 px.

The tool also follows the habits that work most widely: explicit widths, longhand properties such as padding-top, six-digit hex colors, pixel font sizes and web-safe fonts such as Arial or Georgia. Web fonts are not supported, so there are only two font stacks.

For you, that means a plain design and small differences between programs. A colored area is a colored table cell, because a background image would be dropped. The tool is built with email-safe HTML (tables and inline styles) that most mail programs accept, but it cannot promise an identical look in each one, so send yourself a test and run the checklist below.

Adding a logo: by link, and only if you want one

The tool never uploads or hosts images. To add a logo, give it the https link of a PNG or JPG that you host yourself, such as your website's media library. Embedded (base64) images may be refused or arrive as attachments, and links to cloud-drive sharing pages often do not display.

• Keep the file under about 100 KB.
• Set width, height and alt text. The checks list flags a missing one.
• Export the logo at the size it will be shown. A file twice that size shown at half size can look fine, but Outlook may scale images by the file's DPI and Windows display scaling, so check.
• Expect many programs to block remote images until the reader allows them.

That is why the default template is text-first: it makes sense with no image. For a branded look without a hosted logo, turn on the badge option, which draws your initials in a colored table cell.

The preview shows a grey box where the logo goes, because this page never loads other websites' images. Send yourself a test to see the real logo.

Adding the signature in Gmail

Menus change, so check Gmail's current help page if a name below differs. On the web, the steps are usually these.

• Click the gear icon, then See all settings.
• On the General tab, scroll down to Signature.
• Click Create new and name the signature.
• Paste into the box.
• Choose this signature for new emails and for replies.
• Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Gmail limits a signature to 10,000 characters, including images. The checks list counts yours and warns you before you get there.

Adding the signature in Outlook

Check Outlook's current help page if menus differ.

Adding the signature in Apple Mail

On a Mac, open Mail, then Settings, then Signatures. Click the plus button and name the signature. Untick Always match my default message font, or the font changes. Paste, then choose the signature for your account. If formatting is lost, copy from Chrome or Firefox instead of Safari.

Mail's settings preview can show broken-looking images that will work fine, so send a test.

On an iPhone, go to Settings, Mail, Signature. Some versions accept pasted formatted text, but the box is limited. If formatting disappears, shaking the phone to undo Change Attributes can restore it. If not, use the plain-text version.

Phone apps and the plain-text version

The Gmail apps mostly accept a plain-text signature only. Look for Mobile Signature in your account's settings; the name differs by app and version.

That is what the plain-text copy is for: six lines or fewer, no images, no styling.

Dark mode

Some programs invert or tint colors in dark mode. A few habits help.

• Do not set a background color on the whole signature.
• Avoid pure black (#000000) and pure white (#FFFFFF) text. Dark grey such as #333333 is safer.
• A logo with a transparent background and dark artwork can vanish on a dark background. Use a logo with a thin light outline, or a mid-tone color.
• Use the dark preview and the link-color checks: links should reach 4.5:1 on white and on a dark background.

Test checklist before you rely on it

No generator can promise how every program shows your signature, so test it once.

• Send a test to yourself and to an address on a different provider.
• Open it on a phone.
• Check dark mode.
• Open it in Outlook if your customers use it.
• Click every link.
• Turn images off. Does the signature still make sense without the logo?
• Check the size of the logo.
• Check that replies and forwards use the signature, if you set that.

A note on your email address

A free email address next to a business name can look less professional than an address at your own domain, plus a website.

Your details stay in your browser

The signature is built in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, and the tool asks for no account and no email address. It adds no badge, branding line, tracking pixel, redirect link or analytics link. Only http, https, mailto and tel links are written, and everything you type is escaped. Close the tab and your details are gone, so download the .html file to keep a copy.

Frequently asked questions