e-mail

Apple Mail e-mail Signatures

Apple Mail Signatures are quite easy to do I hear you say. Well, yes if you’re happy with your signature being thought of as an attachment to an e-mail and not an integral part of an e-mail then yes!

Doing it properly requires some work…

Design your e-mail signature

Think of your signature as a very basic HTML web page. Code your basic HTML e-mail signature using HTML. You can use tables but do not use divs. Keeping it simple, just <p>’s and images. Style your fonts with inline ‘<p style=’ tags.

If you’ve ever created a HTML e-mail then you’re off to a flying start. Your coding should be basic HTML with inline styles. See…
HTML e-mail creation

Design your Signature in a HTML editing program.
All images in your design need to be served from the internet (Your server).
Make sure all links to the images are absolute (complete url’s).
View your signature in a web browser and when you’re happy with the way it looks you are ready! The code you will need is everything within your ‘body’ tags. Not the ‘body’ tags themselves.

Sample apple mail e-mail signature code…


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8" />
	<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<p style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;">Kind Regards,</p>
<img src="http://www.directfx.co.uk/signatures/propellerdesign/images/andyrice.png" width="300" height="106" alt=""/>
<p style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;">Andrew Rice
<br>

<img src="http://www.directfx.co.uk/signatures/directfx/images/webmonkey.gif" width="60" height="24" alt=""/>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<p style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;">
<a href="http://www.directfx.co.uk"><img src="http://www.directfx.co.uk/signatures/directfx/images/directfxlogo.png" width="272" height="64" alt=""/></a><br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold;">DirectFX</span><br>
  124, Cardinal Lofts, <br>
  Foundry Lane,<br>
  Ipswich, Suffolk,<br>
  IP4 1DJ, UK.
  </p>
  <table width="440" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
  <tr>
    <td width="72"><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;">Tel:</span>
    </td>
    <td width="360"><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;"><a style="text-decoration:none;color:#000000;" href="tel:441473808219"><span style="color:#000000;">+44 (0)1473 808 219</span></a></span>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;">Mob 1:</span>
    </td>
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;"><a style="text-decoration:none;color:#000000;" href="tel:447421057038"><span style="color:#000000;">+44 (0)7421 057 038</span></a></span>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>  
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;font-weight:bold;">Mob 2:</span>
    </td>
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;"><a style="text-decoration:none;color:#000000;" href="tel:447925575379"><span style="color:#000000;">+44 (0)7925 575 379</span></a></span>
    </td>
   </tr>
   <tr> 
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;font-weight:normal;color:#ababab;">Burner:</span>
    </td>
    <td><span style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', 'DejaVu Sans', Verdana, sans-serif; font-size:15px;"><a style="text-decoration:none;color:#000000;" href="tel:447752871482"><span style="color:#ababab;">+44 (0)7752 871 482</span></a></span>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<a href="http://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Direct+FX/@52.0525483,1.1528183,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d9a02eae973483:0xb39311c6c9cae49!8m2!3d52.052545!4d1.155007"><img src="http://www.directfx.co.uk/signatures/directfx/images/world-map.png" width="128" height="100" alt=""/></a>

</body>
</html>

View the code

Click the .html image icon to your right to view the sample Apple Mail e-mail signature code above in your browser now!

.html

Apple Mail 👨🏾‍💻
“PRO” Signatures

Instructions by Andrew “IT Man” Rice http://www.directfx.co.uk

Why are these “Professional” email signatures? Because they do not appear as annoying “Attachments” 📎 to your e-mail correspondence.

Check what Apple Operating System you are using?

These instructions are for macOS Catalina version 10.15.3. You can still follow these instructions for other OS’s but at step (iii) your MailData location will be slightly different.

Open Mac Mail

Mail > Preferences.
Select ‘Signatures’.
Click the ‘+’ to create a new signature.
Give your new e-mail signature a meaningful name.
Type something, anything (gobbledygook) into the content field of the HTML signature. It doesn’t matter what you type here because we’re going to replace it later.
Close Preferences
QUIT Apple Mail

The last step (7) is important. Left open and running Apple Mail will quickly overwrite any changes you may make to your signature file. Your changes won’t ever stick and you’ll see no difference with your signature.

Invisible files

We’re going to locate your .mailsignature file

In your Apple Finder
Press ⇧⌘G to open the “Go to folder".
type: ~/Library/Mail/V7/MailData/Signatures (tip: copy and paste this line)
Note:This location pertains to MacOS Catalina. It may vary depending what OS you are using. Alter the “V” number to something lower for older OS’s and you’ll find the directory of your MailData Signatures.
View the contents of this folder by date.
Locate the most recent .mailsignature file (That’s the one you’ve just created in Apple Mail).
Open in TextEdit
Within the code you will find the Gobbledygook you typed earlier.
Top Tip! It’s within the

Gobbledygook
tags.
Replace this Gobbledygook with your new HTML e-mail signature code.
SAVE.
Quit.
In the finder Select your saved .mailsignature file.
⌘i Get “info” on this file. (alternatively right click and select get info on this file).
Check the tick box to lock this file (Stops Apple Mail from overwriting your changes).

Open Apple Mail

Mail > Preferences.
Select ‘Signatures’.
Select your newly created Signature
Drag it onto the e-mail account you wish to use it with
Select this chosen account
You can make the signature the default signature for this account by selecting “Choose Signature” and selecting your newly created signature from the drop down list of options.

NOTE: You will not see any images in your Apple Mail Signatures preview pane. They will appear when the recipient of the e-mail selects “Load remote content”.

Send yourself an e-mail adding the new signature (if you’ve not already made it the default signature) to confirm it’s all working.

(Test all of your links are working in your new signature).

NOTE: These signature changes apply ONLY to the computer that you are sending mail from. To see the changes universally on the e-mail account to which you are applying this new signature you will need to follow these steps on every computer you are sending mail from using this e-mail account.

JOB DONE! 😄

Distribute these instructions amongst your colleagues

If you would like to provide these instructions to your colleagues so that everyone has the same 'look' signatures to their company e-mails I've provided a "Pages" file with these instructions to follow

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