[ Email signatures ]
How to Create Email Signature in Outlook: New, Classic, Mac and Phone
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To add a signature in Outlook, open Settings, then Accounts, then Signatures in the new Outlook or Outlook on the web. In classic Outlook for Windows, open a new email and choose Signature, then Signatures. Outlook for Mac keeps its own under the Outlook menu, Settings, Signatures, and the phone app takes plain text only.
That is the menu answer, and every page ranking for this search gives it. What they leave out is the part that costs people a morning: Outlook is not one app. There are four places to set a signature, each keeps its own copy, and two of them quietly change your design on the way out. I set signatures up across all of them for clients, so here is each one in turn, what it does to a designed signature, and how to build it once so it survives every one.
Build your own signature if you would rather skip the fiddly part. It is made for the new Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail, and you can try it with your own logo before you pay $50.
Which Outlook Do You Have?
Check this first, because the steps are different in each. If you are on a Windows computer and your Outlook has a File menu with a long ribbon of buttons, you have classic Outlook. If it looks like a web page with a gear icon at the top right, you have the new Outlook, which is the same design as Outlook on the web. On a Mac it is Outlook for Mac, and on a phone it is the Outlook app.
| Outlook | Where the signature lives | What it does to a designed signature |
|---|---|---|
| New Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web | Settings, Accounts, Signatures | Keeps the layout and the logo. Capitals made by a style can come out in lower case |
| Classic Outlook for Windows | New email, Signature, Signatures | Draws mail with Word, which ignores background images, styled capitals and side-by-side blocks |
| Outlook for Mac | Outlook menu, Settings, Signatures | Keeps the layout. A logo pasted in travels with every email as an attachment |
| The Outlook phone app | Settings, Mail, Signature | Text only. It does not pick up the signature from your computer |
Most small businesses here have more than one of these. Statcounter put Windows at 64.83% of Australian desktop browsing in September 2026, and Mac at 30.38% (it splits Apple's computers into OS X at 18.25% and macOS at 12.13%). So a business with a Windows desktop in the office and a MacBook at home is common, and that is two different Outlooks before anyone picks up a phone.
How Do I Make an Email Signature in Outlook?
In the new Outlook for Windows and in Outlook on the web, Microsoft's steps are short:
- Select Settings, the gear icon at the top right.
- Select Accounts, then Signatures. If you have more than one account, choose the one this signature is for.
- Select Add signature and give it a name you will recognise later, such as "Main" or "Short reply".
- Type or paste your signature into the box.
- Use the tick boxes at the bottom to add it to new messages, and to replies and forwards.
- Select Save.
Paste is the step that matters. Typing your details into that box and dropping a logo in gives you a signature that works, but the logo gets copied into every email you send. Pasting a signature that was built as a table, with the logo and icons loaded from your own website, gives you the same look without the baggage. More on why in the section on attachments below.
Classic Outlook for Windows: The One That Changes Your Design
In classic Outlook, Microsoft's route starts from a blank email: open a new message, choose Signature on the Message tab, then Signatures. Select New, name it, build it in the editing box, then set your default for new messages and for replies and forwards on the right before you select OK.
The steps are easy. The rendering is not. When Outlook 2007 arrived, Microsoft's own developer notes said it "uses the HTML parsing and rendering engine from Microsoft Office Word" to display email, and classic Outlook still draws mail that way. The same page lists what Word does not support, and three items on it break signatures all the time:
- Background images. A coloured panel or pattern set behind your details simply disappears.
- Styled capitals (text-transform). A role line set to capitals with a style comes out in ordinary case.
- Floats and display rules. A logo meant to sit beside your details drops underneath them instead.
I saw the capitals one on a client's signature this month. NeuroInspire's custom signatures were handed over at the start of October 2026, and the founder's role line was typed normally and turned into capitals by a style, which looked right everywhere I tested it, until an email arrived from Outlook on the web with the line in ordinary case. That was not even classic Outlook; the web version stripped it too. The fix was dull and permanent: the capitals are typed as capitals now, in every signature I build and in every layout of the builder.
Classic Outlook is not going away soon, either. A Microsoft moderator on its Q&A forum says support for classic Outlook continues "until at least 2029" for Microsoft 365 plans with desktop apps and for perpetual licences, with the new Outlook becoming the default from April 2026 while people can still switch back. If your office runs on classic Outlook, plan for it rather than around it.
Four settings for one signature is the real cost of Outlook. None of them is hard on its own, but miss one and that device keeps sending your old details, or none at all.
Outlook for Mac
On a Mac, Microsoft's steps go through the Outlook menu at the top of the screen: choose Settings, then Signatures under Mail. Rename the starting signature or add a new one, paste or type it in the editor, then close the window. To add it automatically, choose the account under "Choose which signature appears" and set it for new messages, and for replies or forwards.
Microsoft's page also notes that support for legacy Outlook for Mac ends in October 2026, so if your Mac still runs the older version, move to the current one before you set the signature up rather than after. Outlook for Mac is where my client's logos were sent from when they arrived stretched on an Android phone, which is a story for my email signature examples article. The short version: a logo needs a cell exactly as wide as the logo, or a phone app may fill the space for it.
How Do I Automatically Add a Signature to an Email in Outlook?
Every version has the same two switches: one for new messages and one for replies and forwards. Set both if you want the signature everywhere, or set a shorter signature for replies so a long email thread does not repeat your full block twenty times. To change the signature on a single email, open the message, choose Signature (in the Insert group on the Message tab) and pick a different saved one.
Whether your signature follows you to a second computer depends on your account. Microsoft's page on roaming signatures says classic Outlook on build 2303 or later stores signatures in the mailbox for Microsoft 365 and Outlook.com accounts, so they appear on every computer where that account is set up. POP, IMAP and on-premises Exchange accounts do not roam. That catches a lot of small businesses whose email came bundled with their website hosting.
Here is what that means in practice. A team of five, each with a desktop and a phone, is ten signatures to set up. Give one of them a laptop as well and it is eleven. On a POP or IMAP account none of those share a copy, so a new phone number on the business card means eleven edits, and the one you forget is the one a new client sees.
The Outlook Phone App Only Takes Text
On iPhone and Android, Microsoft's instructions are: open Settings, then under Mail tap Signature. You can switch on Per Account Signature to give each account its own. What you cannot do is bring your designed signature across. A moderator on Microsoft's Q&A forum confirms that the Outlook mobile app does not support roaming signatures, so the phone sends whatever text you type into that one box.
That matters more than it sounds. Statcounter put iPhone at 62.59% of mobile browsing in Australia in September 2026 and Android at 37.4%, and plenty of quick replies get written on a phone between jobs. Type three short lines: your name, your role and business, and your phone number. Leave out the website address if it makes the line wrap, and do not paste a link to an image. Plain text is the honest version on a phone, and it never breaks.
Why Does My Logo Turn Into an Attachment?
Because it was put into the signature rather than linked to it. Microsoft's own page says a signature can include a logo, and the editor makes adding one easy. But a logo inserted that way travels inside every email as a file. When I tested NeuroInspire's signature this way, Outlook sent every image in it as its own attachment, nine on one email, and that email was slow to open on a phone. My own signature did the same.
A logo loaded from your own website works differently. The signature holds a web address, and the reader's email app fetches the logo from your site when the email opens. Nothing is attached, the email stays light, and the logo is the same sharp file every time. It does need two things: a website you can log in to, so the files can go up, and the logo saved at twice the size it shows, so it stays sharp on a high-resolution screen.
Outlook does have one honest limit here. Some versions hold back images from senders a reader has not emailed before, and show a line asking whether to download them. That happens to every signature with a logo, from every tool. The signature still reads correctly underneath, because your name, role and phone number are text.
Build It Once, Then Install It in Each Outlook
The email signature generator builds the signature as a table and hands you your logo, headshot and icons, sized at twice their display size, ready to upload to your site. Pick a layout, add your colours and details, pay $50, and the download includes install steps for the app you pick: the new Outlook, Gmail or Apple Mail. Each extra person is $25, and if you spot a typo after paying, the same browser lets you fix it and download again at no charge for 14 days. You paste it into each Outlook from the steps above, then type the short text version into the phone app. If you want something a layout cannot do, like a promotional banner or a design built around your brand from scratch, that is a custom signature: $250, then $50 for each extra person, paste-tested in Gmail before you get it.
The builder is the wrong tool in one case, and I would rather say so here. If your team works in classic Outlook for Windows, I do not offer signatures for it at the moment, built here or designed by me, because its Word engine handles a signature's logo, headshot and icons its own way. And if all you want is your name and number, type them into the Settings box above and save your money.
Whichever way you go, send a test from every Outlook you use to an address on another service, then check it on your phone too, before your clients see it. It takes about 10 minutes and it is the only check that counts. If you do not have a website yet, that comes first, and my breakdown of how much website design should cost covers it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I change my email signature in Outlook?
How do I change my signature in Outlook per email?
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How do I add a logo to my Outlook signature?
Founder & digital marketing specialist at Saltline Studio, Port Macquarie. Helping small businesses grow with custom websites and organic search.
