How to update your signature block in Outlook 2019 / 365 / 2016 emails?

Applies to: Windows 7/8/10 and MAC operating systems.

Here’s a question that we received from a reader who wanted to add a footer signature text in Office Outlook 365:

Hello folks. A customer of mine sent me a note that had a quite fancy signature in the bottom, complete with his name, address, contact details. Wanted to ask you how can i auto insert a signature of my own into my Outlook email. Note that i use multiple email accounts concurrently – Gmail for business usage and Outlook.com for personal; so i would like to have couple of signatures defined. Is that possible? If so, how?

Hey – thanks for the question. Setting your custom signatures for outgoing email messages is pretty simple with Microsoft Outlook. As i am now setting up my new Outlook 2019 installation, i would like to explain the process using that version.  That said, the process is almost identical for other Outlook versions.

Add and Change signatures in Outlook 365 / 2019 / 2016

Here’s how you create or edit your Outlook email signature block:

1. First off, open Outlook and then select the File menu.
2. Now, select Options.
3. Then, go ahead and select Mail.
4. At the right hand side of the dialog hit the Signatures button.
5. The following dialog will come up:

6. Hit New.
7. Changing your signature is easy: just use the Edit signature box in order to customize your text as required.
8. Note that you are able to easily add links (to your website and/or email address), pictures and a business card to your signature. You could even make a nice handwritten signature and attach it to outgoing email.
9. Use  the E-mail account drop down to associate a default signatures to different email accounts (Gmail / Yahoo/ Exchange / Outlook) as needed.
10. Specify whether your settings should be used for new email/ when replying or in both cases.
11. Note that you can create as many signature entries as needed. This allows you to setup different default signatures for professional, business and personal usages. Just ensure that the relevant entry is associated with the right email account.
12. Once done hit, OK.

Change MS Outlook signature in macOS

1. Hit Outlook.
2. Now hit Preferences.
3. Then, under Email, hit Signatures.
4. Hit the + sign to add a signature.

5. Edit your signature text as needed.
6. Close the dialog.
7. Use the Account drop down to associate the signature with a specific email account (GMail/Outlook/Yahoo/Work Exchange).
8. Specify whether it should be used for new email/ when replying or in both cases.
9. Go ahead and add additional signatures as applicable.

Update Outlook.com signatures

1. From your favorite web browser, go ahead and login to Outlook.com.
2. In the right hand side of the upper task bar, hit the Settings button.
3. Then in the search box, type Email signature and hit the link below.
4. The Compose and Reply dialog will be opened as shown below:

5. Add/Modify your signature text, including links, phone numbers, corporate standard info as needed.
6. Determine whether you’ll auto include signatures in news emails , email forwarding and replies.
7. Hit Save.

Backup your signatures

Couple of readers asked me about where does signature text get saved in Windows, so that they can backup their Outlook email signatures when needed. When switching computers, the already defined personalized signatures can be copied over the network/hard drive or OneDrive and then incorporated into Outlook.

In Windows 7/8 and 10, the Outlook signatures are located at the: <local_drive>:\Users\<your_user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures folder. When creating a signature several files are created in that folder, each corresponding to the different Outlook message formats: htm, rtf and txt. Additionally a folder containing additional files related to the signature is created. When nedded, make sure to backup and copy thye relevant text to the new computer.

HTML graphics/animations and hyperlinks

You can add a personal touch to the signature by inserting pictures (bmp, jpeg, png), animations (gif) and hyperlinks.

When editing your signature in both Windows and MAC versions of Outlook, you’ll find both the Insert Picture and Insert Hyperlink buttons that allow you to accomplish  exactly that.

Proceed as following:

1. Open the Signatures dialog as shown above.
2. Hit on the Insert picture icon
3. Browse to your picture location in your PC.
4. Select the picture file and hit OK.

Note: Animated files (in gif or swf formats) can also be added, however chances are that policies of different email providers might quarantine messages containing animations or delete the animated files from the email before delivering to its recipients.

That’s it for today, feel free to leave as a comment in case of questions.