Free email signature generator: how to make one in minutes, and what to check

A free email signature generator turns a handful of details (name, title, phone, logo) into a signature you can paste into your mail app. Making one takes minutes. Making sure it still looks right in Gmail, Outlook and on a phone is the part generators rarely help with, so this page covers both: a step-by-step build with emailfooter, and an eight-point checklist you can run on the output of any generator.

One honest note first. emailfooter is a free WordPress plugin, not a form on a web page. You install it on a WordPress site, or we host it as emailfooter Managed (priced on request). That suits a team that wants one shared design. If you are one person who needs a signature this afternoon, a hand-typed signature or a web-form generator is quicker, and the checklist below still applies. The Gmail and Outlook paste steps follow Google’s and Microsoft’s help pages, read in October 2026.

What a free email signature generator does, and what it leaves to you

A free email signature generator does three things. It collects your details in a form, it lays them out in a design, and it hands you the result to copy. After that you are on your own. The generator does not know whether Gmail will accept the length, whether your recipient’s app blocks images, or whether your logo is too large.

It also does not keep a team consistent. If twenty people each use a generator and make their own choices, you get twenty signatures. That is a different problem, which a shared design solves.

How to make a signature with emailfooter, step by step

These steps follow emailfooter’s own documentation for version 1.2.0. Allow about ten minutes.

1. Install the plugin. In WordPress, go to Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin, choose the zip, install it and click Activate. Whoever activates it becomes the platform admin.
2. Follow the setup guide. It opens by itself. You give your name, work email and position, confirm a 6-digit code emailed from emailfooter.co (or choose “Continue offline”), and add your company.
3. Fill in Business info. Company name, tagline, website, company phone, address, social links and the logo. Choose whether the picture spot shows the employee photo or the company logo.
4. Set the Design. Pick one of 24 colour themes or set the six colour roles yourself, plus font, font size, icon style and divider.
5. Pick a layout under Templates. There are ten, from Classic to Wide, or you can write your own HTML with merge tags.
6. Open My signature. Fill in your name, job title, email, phone and photo. The live preview updates as you type and switches between light and dark.
7. Choose your mail app under Install in your mail app. Follow the numbered steps and use the copy button. You can copy a rich signature, HTML code or plain text.

Here is a signature built this way:

Profile layout from the plugin: photo, logo, one number, a booking link. The bakery and person are made up.

Limits to know about: emailfooter is English-only for now, employees install their own signatures by following the steps (nothing is pushed into mailboxes), and its analytics count only copies and installs, not clicks. The free WordPress plugin page lists what your site needs.

A free email signature generator checklist, in detail

Run these on the output of any generator, including ours.

1. Where does the logo live?

If the generator hosts your logo on its own domain, your signature depends on that service staying online. Prefer a web address on your own site. Gmail lets you add an image from a web address, from My Drive or by upload, and Google’s administrator page warns that Drive images must be shared publicly to appear (Google Workspace Help, read in October 2026).

2. Is it small enough?

As a rule of thumb, a logo around 120 to 200 pixels wide as displayed, saved at twice that size, and a file of a few tens of kilobytes. These are our numbers, not vendor limits. The size guide explains.

3. Do the links work?

Click each one after you paste. Check that phone numbers include the country code and that web links start with https. Be wary of generators that route links through their own redirect, since that adds a dependency you cannot see.

4. Does every image have alt text?

Microsoft says classic Outlook is set by default to block automatic picture downloads (Microsoft Support). A blocked logo with alt text still shows the company name.

5. Are the essentials real text?

A signature that is one big picture fails when pictures are blocked. Microsoft’s page on message formats also says plain text does not support showing pictures inside the message.

6. Is there a plain-text version?

Some mobile apps accept only plain text. emailfooter’s own install steps for the Gmail mobile app say it supports only plain-text signatures and point to a “Copy plain text” button. Check that your generator offers a plain version.

7. Does it fit the limit?

Google’s Gmail help page says a signature can hold up to 10,000 characters, and an image counts toward that (Gmail Help, read in October 2026). A signature with heavy styling code can hit the limit sooner than its visible text suggests. If Gmail shows an error, resize the image first.

8. How does it look in dark mode?

Send a test to yourself and view it with the app in dark mode. Our guide to email signature dark mode explains what to look for.

Pasting the result into Gmail and Outlook

These steps follow Google’s and Microsoft’s help pages, read in October 2026.

Gmail on a computer: click Settings, then See all settings. In the Signature section, add the signature in the box, and click Save Changes at the bottom. You can set a default for new emails and for replies.

New Outlook and Outlook on the web: select Settings, then Accounts, then Signatures. Select Add signature, paste it into the editing box, choose when to use it and select Save.

Classic Outlook for Windows: open a new message, go to Message, Signature, Signatures, choose New, and paste into the Edit signature box. Microsoft notes that classic Outlook does not add the new signature to the message you opened to create it. For Apple Mail and other apps, see the general setup guide.

When a free email signature generator is enough

For one person, it is enough. For a company, the cost shows later: every change means asking everyone to edit their own settings. That is where a shared design helps, and where emailfooter or our hosted Managed option fit. To compare other tools, see our list of the best free email signature generators, and for the underlying code, the article on HTML email signatures.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free email signature generator with no limits?

emailfooter is free with no limits on companies or people, but it runs on WordPress or on emailfooter Managed. For other tools, read each one’s own pricing page.

How do I create an email signature online for free?

Fill in a generator’s form, copy the result as a rich signature, and paste it into your mail app’s signature box. Then send a test to yourself.

Can I use the same email signature in Gmail and Outlook?

Yes. Paste it into each app’s signature box. Each has quirks, so test in both.

Why does my generated signature look different in Outlook?

Classic Outlook for Windows has long drawn email with Word’s engine, which supports fewer CSS properties than a browser does (Microsoft’s archived reference describes this for Outlook 2007), so a design built for the web can shift there.

Do I need to know HTML to make an email signature?

No. A generator or the plugin’s editor does it for you, though the HTML helps when something breaks.