Apple Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 is now available. Once again, Apple updated Mail.app with some changes. If you want to create a custom HTML email signature for Mail on Mountain Lion, the HTML coding part remains the same but the installation have changed. Follow this tutorial to create a HTML email signature file and to get it installed into the new version of Mail on Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.
Adding hyperlinks to your Mac Mail signature. Finally, we’ll walk through the steps of adding hyperlinked text in your Mac Mail signature so you can hyperlink your website and email address for example. Open the Mac Mail app and click “Mail” in the menu bar. Select “Preferences”from the menu. Once you've unlocked your email signature, use the 'Copy' calls-to-action to copy the signature or the source code. Depending on your email client, there will be different steps for uploading your email signature. To help, we've covered the instructions for how to add your email signature to HubSpot, Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and Yahoo Mail. Email signature generator with beautiful, ready to use signature templates. Export your signature to: Outlook, Office 365, Exchange Server, Gmail or Thunderbird. Prepare your signature in no time!
For Mac OS X 10.7 users, please follow my previous tutorial: Create a HTML Signature in Apple Mail on Lion OS X 10.7.
Step 1: Designing the HTML/CSS
Before we begin, here are some basic but important notes to keep in mind as you design your signature. One major obstacle in designing HTML e-mail templates is that there are literally dozens of different e-mail clients out there (most if not all can’t handle CSS and HTML as well as our internet browsers can) so you have to keep your design and codes as simple and straight forward as possible.
- Use tables for basic layout. The CSS float property is not supported in Gmail or Outlook, making CSS layouts impractical.
- Use inline CSS. The style tag is not supported in Gmail, and support for CSS selectors is spotty.
- Use only basic CSS properties. E-mail clients tend to be very picky about which CSS properties they support. Campaign Monitor has a great summary of CSS support in e-mail to use for reference.
- Use absolute URLs. Relative paths won’t work for an e-mail signature. So all your links need to be absolute URLs.
- Link to images. I personally dislike e-mail signature images as attachments (it makes it easy to mistaken that image as a legitimate attachment). Because of this, I recommend linking to your images by placing them on a web server rather than including them as attachments.
For my signature, I used a two-column table. I have my logo on the left and the text on the right. I placed each element inside its own SPAN division to have the text float left without it breaking off to its own line and so that I could use inline CSS to format each element. If you use a DIV instead of a SPAN, each element will start in a new line. You can view my HTML design here and feel free to use it as a starting point for your own email signature.
For STEP 4, you will need to paste the HTML code of your email signature design. If you used MYDESIGNPAD’s Email Signature Service, read below to reveal the HTML code from the HTML file that was emailed to you.
How to reveal and copy HTML code in Safari
Open your HTML email signature file with Safari.
Go to Safari/Preferences.
On the “Advanced” tab, check “Show Develop menu in menu bar.”
On Safari’s menu bar, go to Develop/View Page Source to reveal HTML code
Select all of the HTML code and copy.
Step 2: Create Placeholder Signature in Mail
In Mail.app, open Preferences and click on the Signatures tab. There you will see 3 columns, the 1st one are your mail box accounts, the 2nd one are your custom signatures and the 3rd column is the signature detail preview. Create a new placeholder signature by clicking on the plus icon at the bottom of the 2nd column and name it. Drag your new signature from column 2 into your preferred mail box in column 1. Select your preferred mail box in the first column and go down to Choose Signature at the bottom. In the drop down menu, find and select your new signature. Note: At this point you will not see your HTML signature design on the 3rd column yet. Leave the 3rd column as is for now. Close window and quit Mail.app.
Step 3: Open the Signatures Folder
On Finder’s top nav, drop down the Go menu and than hold down the Option key to see the hidden Library folder. Once the Library folder is open, go to: ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures/.
Make Signature For Mac Mail Signature
Step 4: Update Placeholder Signature
Find the signature that you just added (a file ending with a .mailsignature extension). If there are multiple files in the folder, switch to list view. The signature that you just added in Mail.app should be the file that with the most recent modified date. When you have located the .mailsignature file, open it with TextEdit. You may see some metadata info on top and some HTML code below it. Delete all the HTML code (highlighted in picture below) and leave the metadata info untouched.
Apple Mail Signature
Under the metadata info, paste the HTML code of your email signature (Read bottom of Step 1 for instructions on how to reveal and copy the HTML code of your email signature design with Safari). Hit Save and quit TextEdit.
Step 5: Lock Updated Signature File – Important Step!
This step must be followed correctly in order for this signature to work or else Mail.app will use the original version of the signature instead of the new one. Locate the .mailsignature file that you just updated in Finder again. Press Command+I or right click on file to Get Info. In the Get Info window, mark the Locked check box.
***Another way to lock the file is by clicking on the gray text to the right of the file name on the header of TextEdit. A drop-down menu will pop up giving you the option to lock file. (See 2nd image in Step 4)***
Step 6: Check Installation
Restart Mail.app. Your new custom signature should appear automatically when you click on Compose Mail. If not, make sure you have followed Step 2 correctly. Links will not work and the images if any may not show when composing an email. But the links will work and the images will show on the receiving end if the source locations are correct. Compose and send yourself a test email with your new signature selected. If the images show, the links working and everything looks as it should, then you have done this correctly. Good Job!
Summing Up
Feel free to contact me if you run into any problems creating your very own Apple Mail signature. I’ll be pleased to see your creative HTML email signature so please post your link in the comment area. Cheers!
If creating your own HTML signature seems a bit too much work or you just don’t have the time for it, we can help. We have already created over 8000 attractive email signature with clickable images and text links for clients from all over the world. Visit our HTML email signature design service website: www.htmlsignature.com for more info.
Mail User Guide
You can create prepared text, called a signature, to include when you send email messages. For example, you can create one signature for your work email and another signature for your personal email.
Create signatures
In the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Signatures.
In the left column, select the email account where you want to use the signature.
If All Signatures is selected when you create a signature, you’ll need to drag the new signature to an email account before you can use it.
Click the Add button below the middle column.
In the middle column, type a name for the signature.
The name appears in the Signature pop-up menu when you write a message.
In the right column (the preview), create your signature.
You can use the Edit or Format menus in Mail to change the font or layout, turn text into links, or check spelling. To add an image, drag it into the preview area.
If you want your signature to appear after the original text of messages you reply to or forward, deselect the “Place signature above quoted text” checkbox.
Delete signatures
In the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Signatures.
Select a signature in the middle column, then click the Remove button .
When you delete a signature from All Signatures, it’s deleted from any account that uses it.
Automatically add a signature to emails
You can choose a signature to automatically add to messages you send.
In the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Preferences, then click Signatures.
Select an account in the left column.
Click the Choose Signature pop-up menu, then choose a signature.
If you have more than one signature for an account, Mail can automatically alternate between them—choose At Random or In Sequential Order from the pop-up menu.
Hyperlink Image Signature Mac Mail
If you want to stop having a signature automatically added to your messages, click the Choose Signature pop-up menu, then choose None.
Add a signature to emails yourself
In the Mail app on your Mac, click the Signature pop-up menu in the message you’re writing.
Choose a signature.
If you don’t see an expected signature in the pop-up menu, choose Edit Signatures to open Signatures preferences and verify the signature is in the account.
Remove a signature from emails
In the Mail app on your Mac, in a message you’re writing, click the Signature pop-up menu.
Choose None.
Depending on how a recipient’s mail server handles signatures, your signature may appear as an attachment or image to the recipient.
If you use iCloud Drive on your Mac and other devices, your signatures are automatically updated and available on those devices. See Use iCloud Drive to store documents.
Create Signature On Mac
If you need to send a signed PDF document, you can use Markup in Mail to create a handwritten signature and add it to the document. You can also use the Preview app to fill out and sign PDF forms.