How to Add an Email Signature in Gmail, With a Logo That Actually Shows

Make your Gmail signatureDownload the Gmail signature checklist (PDF)

Two kinds of Gmail signature

Gmail's signature box accepts plain text, basic formatting, links and a picture. For many people that is enough: a name, a role, a phone number. If you want a layout, such as a photo on the left with your details beside it, a coloured line and a button, typing it into Gmail's box is fiddly and the result tends to shift when it reaches other email apps.

The alternative is to build the signature somewhere else and paste it in. Our free email signature generator builds each design from a layout table with the styles written on each element, which is the way email apps reliably keep. You copy it with one button and paste it into Gmail. Either way, the steps in Gmail are the same.

Step by step on a computer

1. Build the signature

Fill in your name, title, company, phone, email and website. Add a photo or logo address if you have one (more on that below), up to six social profiles, and an optional button such as "Book a call". Pick one of the four templates. The preview updates as you type, and the page shows the signature's size against Gmail's limit.

2. Copy it

Press Copy signature. That copies the formatted version, which is what Gmail needs. Copy HTML code is for people pasting into a tool that wants code.

3. Open Gmail's signature settings

Google's help page on creating a Gmail signature gives the route: open Gmail on a computer, click Settings at the top right, then See all settings. The Signature section is in the General tab, a long way down the page.

4. Create and paste

Click Create new, give the signature a name you will recognise, and paste into the box with Ctrl+V or ⌘V. The layout should appear exactly as it did in the preview.

5. Set the defaults and save

Under Signature defaults, choose the new signature for new emails and, if you want it there, for replies and forwards. Then scroll to the very bottom and press Save Changes. Leaving the page without saving is the most common reason a signature "doesn't stick".

6. Send a test

Send an email to yourself and to an address on another service, and open both on a computer and a phone.

Adding a logo or photo

Google's help page lists three ways to add a picture in Gmail's own editor: by web address, from Google Drive, or by uploading a file. Its signature troubleshooting page adds the numbers that matter:

• the recommended size is 70 to 100 pixels high and 300 to 400 pixels wide;
• the largest size is 100 pixels high by 1,000 pixels wide;
• an image from Google Drive must be shared publicly, and if the file is deleted, the picture disappears from the signature;
• the picture counts towards the 10,000-character limit for a signature.

A pasted signature from the generator takes the first route: it points to an image at a public https address, such as a logo already on your website (right-click it and copy the image address). The templates show a round photo at 48 to 84 pixels across and a logo at 110 to 140 pixels wide, so they sit well inside Google's limits. Pictures saved only on your computer can't work in any signature, because the person reading your email can't reach your computer. Our guide to email signature logo sizes goes further into dimensions and file types.

Gmail on your phone

The Gmail app has its own setting. Google's help for Android and iPhone describes a Mobile signature that applies only to emails sent from the app, entered as text. It also says that if you don't create one, new messages from the app use the signature you set up on your computer.

So you have a choice. If you want your designed signature on emails sent from your phone, leave the app's Mobile signature off. If you would rather sign phone emails with a short line, set one in the app. On iPhone it is under Settings, Signature settings; on Android it is Settings, your account, Mobile signature. If you use several accounts in the app, it is set per account.

Several addresses, several signatures

Gmail can hold more than one signature. You can set one default for new emails and another for replies, and switch while writing with Insert signature at the bottom of the message window. If you send from more than one address with Gmail's Send mail as feature, Google's help page explains that each address can have its own signature, chosen from a drop-down above the signature box.

That is handy for a business with a sales address and a support address, or for someone who sends from a personal and a work address in the same inbox. The generator remembers your details on your device, so making a second version is a matter of changing two fields and copying again.

If it looks wrong

Google's troubleshooting page covers the usual problems. If the signature shows odd characters or broken formatting, select it in the settings box, use Remove formatting and paste again. If you can't format the text at all, Plain text mode is probably on in the compose window's More options. If the signature seems missing from sent emails, it may be hidden behind the three dots that Gmail uses for trimmed content. For pictures that don't show, our guide to signature images that don't show goes through each cause.

A signature is only as useful as the inbox it sits in. In Fynl, the paid portal, your Gmail inbox sits next to your contacts, bookings, quotes and invoices, and each person on the team saves a signature that is added when they write from there. The generator stays free either way, and it has a button line that is a good home for your Google review link. More free tools are on the free tools page.

Questions people also ask

Sources

• Gmail Help — Create a Gmail signature
• Gmail Help — Troubleshoot issues with Gmail signatures
• Gmail Help — Create a Gmail signature (Android)