How to Create an Email Signature in Gmail (Step by Step)

To create an email signature in Gmail on a computer, click the gear icon, choose See all settings, stay on the General tab, scroll down to Signature, click Create new, name it, type your signature, and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. That is the whole process; the rest of this guide covers the details that trip people up: images, the “signature is too long” error, and choosing which signature is used. It is based on Google's own help pages.

How do I create an email signature in Gmail?

• Open Gmail on the web and click the gear icon, then See all settings.
• Stay on the General tab and scroll down to Signature.
• Type or paste your signature. Depending on your account you will see an empty box or a Create new button; if you use Create new, name the signature first.
• Use the formatting bar for fonts, links and images.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes. Nothing is saved until you do.

Add a logo or photo

Google's help page lists three ways to insert an image: a web address (URL) of an image that is publicly available, an image from your Google Drive that is shared publicly, or an upload from your computer. If you use a Drive image, its sharing must be set to public, or recipients will see a broken image.

For size, Google recommends images about 70 to 100 pixels high and 300 to 400 pixels wide, and says the maximum is 100 pixels high by 1,000 pixels wide. Keep logos small; a signature is not the place for a full-size banner.

Fixing “signature is too long”

Google says a signature can hold up to 10,000 characters, and that an image counts toward that limit. In practice the count includes hidden formatting code, not just the words you can see. Signatures pasted from Word, Google Docs or a web page often carry a lot of extra code, which is why a short-looking signature can be rejected.

• Use images hosted online (a URL) rather than images embedded in the signature itself, which add far more to the count.
• If you pasted from a document or web page, try a simpler layout, or rebuild the signature directly in Gmail's editor.
• If an image is oversized, Google suggests putting it in a Google Doc, resizing it there, then copying and pasting it into the signature.
• If you see the words Plain text above the signature box, turn plain-text mode off so formatting is kept.

Choose which signature is used

You can create more than one signature and set a default for new emails and another for replies and forwards. You can also pick a different signature for an individual message with Insert signature at the bottom of the compose window. If you send from more than one address (a Send mail as alias), you can give each address its own signature using the drop-down above the signature box.

A signature in the Gmail app on your phone

The Gmail app on a phone has its own, separate mobile signature in the app's settings for your account, and it is plain text only. A designed signature with a logo or links is set up in Gmail on a computer; it is then used for mail sent from the web. If you send mostly from your phone, keep the mobile signature to your name, title and phone number.

Using a signature you designed elsewhere

Most signature tools, including ours, give you a Copy signature button. Click it, then paste into Gmail's signature box. The formatting comes with it, because the tool copies the rendered signature rather than raw code. Google's help pages do not describe this route, but it is widely used. If Gmail rejects the paste as too long, use a simpler layout or hosted images.