How to add a signature in Outlook

First, which Outlook do you have?

This is worth thirty seconds, because the versions do not share a signature screen and following the wrong steps looks exactly like the feature being missing. Microsoft’s own test is the Settings button at the top right of the window: if it is there you are in the new Outlook, and if it is missing you are in classic Outlook. A File menu is no longer a reliable sign of the classic app — the new Outlook has one too. To be certain, check Settings → General → About Outlook in the new app, or File → Office Account → About Outlook in the classic one. In a browser you are always on Outlook on the web.

Before you start: have the signature on your clipboard

Every set of steps below ends with pasting. Outlook itself only gives you a small formatting box — font, size, colour, a link button and an image button — so the design has to come from somewhere else. If you already have a signature you are happy with, copy it now. If not, our free generator makes one in about two minutes and copies it formatted, ready to paste.

New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web

These are two different products — new Outlook for Windows is a desktop app, Outlook on the web runs in a browser — but they currently share the same signature screen, so the same steps apply to both. This is where Microsoft moved the setting: signatures now sit under Accounts, not under Mail → Compose and reply where older guides put them.

1. 1Open Settings — the gear icon at the top right of the window.
2. 2Choose Accounts, then Signatures.
3. 3If you have more than one account in Outlook, select the account this signature belongs to. Signatures are per account, not per app.
4. 4Select Add signature and give it a name. The name is only for you — it is how you pick between signatures later, and it never appears in an email.
5. 5Click into the editing box and paste with Ctrl + V. Do not use Ctrl + Shift + V: that pastes as plain text and throws away every bit of the formatting.
6. 6At the bottom of the editor, set the signature for New messages and for Replies/forwards. These are two separate settings and neither is on by default.
7. 7Select Save. Signatures here are kept with your account rather than on the PC. Microsoft’s roaming signatures feature can make them available on other devices signed into the same mailbox, though it does not cover every client, and it is unavailable for on-premises Exchange, third-party email services and POP/IMAP accounts.

Classic Outlook for Windows

The desktop Outlook that ships with Microsoft 365 and Office. There are two ways in and they land on the same dialog: File → Options → Mail → Signatures, or, quicker, start a new email and use Signature → Signatures on the Message tab.

1. 1On the E-mail Signature tab, check the E-mail account dropdown on the right is the account you want. Signatures in classic Outlook are set per account.
2. 2Select New, type a name for the signature, and select OK.
3. 3Click into the large Edit signature box and paste with Ctrl + V.
4. 4Under Choose default signature, set both New messages and Replies/forwards to your new signature. Replies default to (none), which is the single most common reason a signature seems to work and then does not.
5. 5Select OK to close the dialog, and OK again if you came in through Options.

Classic Outlook keeps signature files on the PC, in the folder you reach by pasting %AppData%\Microsoft\Signatures into a File Explorer address bar — useful for keeping a backup or moving one to another machine. Since Outlook version 2303, Microsoft’s roaming signatures feature also stores signatures in the mailbox for Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com accounts, so where a given signature actually lives depends on your build and account type. If one you made in classic Outlook does not appear after switching to the new app, add it there again rather than hunting for it.

Outlook for Mac

1. 1On the Outlook menu, select Settings.
2. 2Under Mail, select Signatures. In legacy Outlook for Mac the same entry sits under Email instead.
3. 3Select the add button for a new signature, or Standard to rename and reuse the default one.
4. 4Paste into the signature editor with ⌘ + V.
5. 5Back on the Signatures screen, find Choose which signature appears, pick the account, and set For new messages and For replies or forwards.
6. 6Close the window. Outlook for Mac saves as you go — there is no separate save button.

Worth knowing before you start: Microsoft has an open known issue, last updated 8 July 2026 and still marked as under investigation, where signature edits made in the new settings pane in Outlook for Mac are not saved. No workaround is published. If an edit will not stick, that is the likely cause rather than anything you have done — reopen the pane and check the signature before relying on it.

Outlook on iPhone and Android

Set this one separately, and set your expectations with it. The mobile app has its own signature setting, and Microsoft’s roaming signatures documentation covers Outlook for Windows rather than the mobile apps — so plan on entering it in the app rather than expecting your desktop one to arrive. The editor is also far more limited than the desktop one, so a signature that depends on images or a multi-column layout is unlikely to survive the trip.

1. 1Open the app, tap your profile picture or the menu icon at the top left, then the Settings gear.
2. 2Under Mail, tap Signature.
3. 3Replace the default Get Outlook for iOS or Get Outlook for Android text with your own.

The version worth typing here is the plain one: your name, your title, a phone number if you want calls, and one link, each on its own line. It is a different signature from your desktop one by necessity, so make it a deliberately simpler one rather than a broken copy.

The two steps people miss

Both of these produce a signature that looks installed and then behaves as though it is not, which is why they are worth calling out separately from the steps above.

Replies and forwards are a separate setting

Every version of Outlook treats new messages and replies as two different choices, and setting the first does not set the second. Most of a working day is replies, so a signature configured for new messages only is missing from the majority of the mail you send — usually the mail going to people who already have a thread with you and are most likely to need your number.

Paste with formatting, not as plain text

Ctrl + Shift + V is the shortcut for pasting without formatting, and on a signature it silently removes everything: layout, colours, links, spacing, the lot. You are left with a run of text and no obvious reason why. Use plain Ctrl + V, or ⌘ + V on a Mac. If the paste still arrives unformatted, check the message is being composed in HTML rather than plain text.

Why your signature image doesn’t show in Outlook

This is a common Outlook signature problem, and the usual factor is where the picture lives.

A picture chosen from your computer is usually embedded in the signature as data rather than linked from an address on the web. Embedded or locally stored images can behave inconsistently across Outlook versions and recipients, which is how a signature ends up looking right in the editor and arriving with a placeholder box or a red cross for the person reading it.

A publicly accessible https image is generally more reliable, because the signature references the file rather than carrying it — though images can still be blocked by client or corporate settings. Two straightforward ways to get one:

• Put the file on your own site and use its address. Our generator accepts an image URL as well as a file from your device.
• Save the signature to a free Blyn account, which hosts the picture for you and gives the signature a stable address to point at. It is the same signature, with the one part that cannot travel taken care of.

Because no hosting overrides a recipient whose client blocks images, your name, role and contact details should read perfectly with the picture missing — which is why none of our layouts put text inside an image.

Why it looks different in classic Outlook

Classic Outlook on Windows renders HTML with Microsoft Word’s engine rather than a browser engine. Word ignores CSS that every browser supports, so a signature that is pixel-perfect in a preview can arrive slightly changed: rounded corners squared off, a circular photo rendered as a square, spacing shifted by a few pixels, background colours dropped from some elements.

The way round it is structural rather than cosmetic — build the signature on tables, which Word does understand, and treat the modern CSS as decoration that is allowed to fall away. That is how the layouts in our generator are put together, so the content and structure hold in classic Outlook even where the polish does not. Whatever you use, send yourself a test message and open it in the client you actually work in. A preview in a browser is not an inbox.

Outlook signature troubleshooting

The failures that account for most of it, and what each one actually is.

There is no signature option under Compose and reply

You are in the new Outlook, where signatures moved to Settings → Accounts → Signatures. Nothing is missing.

The signature appears on new mail but not on replies

Replies are a separate setting and default to none. Set Replies/forwards as well as New messages.

The image is a red cross or an empty box for recipients

The picture is likely embedded rather than hosted. A publicly accessible https image is generally more reliable — though any client can still block images.

Pasting lost all the formatting

Ctrl + Shift + V pastes as plain text. Use Ctrl + V, and check the message format is HTML rather than plain text.

The signature vanished after switching to the new Outlook

Signatures made in classic Outlook do not reliably carry over. Add it again under Accounts → Signatures; the classic files are in %AppData%\Microsoft\Signatures if you need the content.

Signature edits will not save in Outlook for Mac

A Microsoft known issue, still under investigation as of 8 July 2026, affecting edits made in the new settings pane. No workaround is published.

Two signatures appear on every message

Outlook is inserting the default automatically and you are also pasting one in by hand. Set the default and stop pasting.

The fonts changed in the recipient's inbox

A web font fell back. Stick to fonts every device has: Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, Trebuchet.

The signature is missing on my phone

Outlook mobile has its own signature setting, outside the scope of roaming signatures. Set it in the app.

What to put in an Outlook signature

Less than most people do. A signature exists so the reader can identify you and reach you, and every extra line dilutes that. Your full name, your job title and company so you are still identifiable when the mail is forwarded, your email address because it survives forwarding when the header does not, a phone number only if you want to be called, and one website — the page a new contact should see first. Add LinkedIn if you use it for work. A row of six social icons reads as a footer, not a signature.

Keep it under about 500 to 600 pixels wide and five or six short lines tall, with any photo or logo between roughly 70 and 110 pixels. Wider forces a phone to scroll sideways; taller takes over short replies, where the message is one line and the signature is eight. Our guide to professional email signature examples works through fifteen of them by role, with the reasoning for each.

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