How to add an email signature in Apple Mail

Before you start

Mail on Mac lets you type and format a simple signature, but a designed signature with a logo is best copied from a web page or document and pasted in. Open your finished signature, select all of it, copy it, and keep it on the clipboard for step 5 below.

On older versions of macOS, the Settings menu item is called Preferences. The steps are otherwise the same.

Add a signature in Mail on Mac

1. Open the Mail app.
2. Choose Mail, then Settings, then click Signatures.
3. In the left column, select the email account that should use the signature.
4. Click the Add button (the plus sign) below the middle column, then type a name for the signature, such as Work.
5. Uncheck Always match my default message font, below the columns.
6. Click in the right column, delete the sample text Mail put there, and paste your signature.
7. Close the Settings window. Mail saves the signature automatically.

These steps follow Apple's Mail User Guide pages titled Edit text and email signatures in Mail on Mac and Change Signatures settings in Mail on Mac.

Why to uncheck Always match my default message font

Apple describes this setting as making the signature use the message font from your Fonts and Colors settings. That is fine for a plain text signature. For a designed one, it replaces the fonts, sizes, and sometimes the colors you pasted in, so the signature you send no longer matches the one you built. Uncheck it before you paste, then paste again if the signature already changed.

Make it the default signature

You can also change the signature on one message by using the Signature menu in the message window.

1. Stay in Mail, Settings, Signatures, with your account selected in the left column.
2. Click the Choose Signature menu at the bottom and pick your signature.
3. Leave Place signature above quoted text checked if you want your signature right under your reply instead of below the whole thread.

Images may look broken in Settings but send correctly

A common surprise: after you paste a signature with a logo, the right column in the Signatures window can show a blank box or a question mark where the image should be. With a signature whose images are hosted at a web address, this is often just the preview. Mail may not load the remote image inside the Settings window, but it loads it in the message you write and the recipient sees it.

Do not try to fix it by dragging the logo file into the column. That embeds the image, which can make it show up as an attachment for some recipients. Instead, test it: start a new message, check that the logo appears in the compose window, and send it to a personal address at another provider. If the logo shows there, you are done.

Other things to check

• Each account in the left column needs its own default. If you send from a work and a personal address, set both.
• Mail on iPhone has its own separate signature setting, and it only takes text. See our iPhone guide for the steps.
• If the signature looks right to you but too large to others, the image is probably a large file being shown at a smaller size. A logo displayed around 150 to 200 pixels wide from a small file is a good target.

A faster option

Staff Signature builds the signature with images hosted online, so pasting into Mail on Mac links to the logo instead of attaching it. The page you copy from includes these Apple Mail steps, including the font checkbox.

Common questions