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Can't add signature to Apple Mail.app in Mac OS X Tiger?Is there some arcane magic required to get signatures to automatically appear on an account? Some of my accounts work fine; some simply refuse to auto insert the signature when I open a new message, even if I completely delete and recreate the signature. Annoyingly, it's my main business account which it doesn't like :-( Wow, how bizarre. I agree, something is busted (or at least unintuitive) in Mail's signature system. First, make sure you have updated to 10.4.1 (go to the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen, and choose Software Update, then accept any updates shown as necessary). Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.1 had some Mail upgrades, among a bunch of other things. Inside Apple Mail, to set Signatures, go to the Mail menu and choose Preferences. Select the Signatures icon, second from the right. Make sure the "Account" is highlighted on the leftmost panel. Don't create the signature when "All signatures" is highlighted, though, as that doesn't seem to work. Instead create your new signature by pressing the small plus sign on the lower left of the middle panel. Edit the text of the new signature in the rightmost panel. ![]() At the bottom of the dialog box is a drop down menu, "Choose signature." Make sure the Signature you just created is chosen. Don't choose "None," "Random Order" or "In Sequential Order." Now, finally, close the Preferences window by hitting the red button in the top left corner, or by pressing Apple-W. Quit mail (Main menu, Quit, or Apple-Q), and relaunch it. You should be able to choose the new signature when creating a new message now. Thanks to Michael Clark for his help with this question
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(Article 4045,
Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: Previous: What's a dictionary attack? Next: How do I best present myself at a networking event? Reader Comments To Date: 41ben said, on August 30, 2005 4:16 AM:
I unfortunately have the same problem of "SK". All that I have available is the "All Signatures" category. My mail account doesn't show up. Steve said, on August 30, 2005 5:58 PM:
Re: problems with signatures in Tiger not appearing. I found that by going to Preferences, Accounts, Advanced, then unchecking the 'enable account' tick box then closing the preference window then checking 'enable account' again the account information appeared in the signature window. Hope this works! Joacim W said, on September 7, 2005 11:57 AM:
It worked like a charm! Thank you! Rishi Patel said, on September 13, 2005 11:52 PM:
I just figured out how to add a signature to my IMAP account. It used to work with the new Mail.app for Tiger, but then they disappeared somehow and I have finally been able to add them. You have to temporarily disable the e-mail account (don't panic the e-mail will disappear temporarily, but it shouldn't go anywhere) and then my account showed up in the signatures box in prefs. It was a weird fluke thing, but only after de-activating the account in Accounts in prefrences, was I able to add signatures. Thanks, john buck said, on September 14, 2005 1:46 AM:
how do i add a photo or a jpeg to Mail signature in 10.4.1 nucleotideg4 said, on October 27, 2005 4:53 AM:
This worked like a charm. Thanks. richard k said, on February 6, 2006 6:43 AM:
nice tip! i had the problem where mail would forget my siganture after a restart. I dis-enabled my account in advanced, then i attributed my signature and finaly re-enabled my account. kelly said, on February 12, 2006 3:16 AM:
Same problem. Different solution. I created a couple of signatures in the "all" category, but couldn't access them in my accounts (I'm using OSX 10.4.4 & Mail). I tried several things in the preferences window, before I finally simply dragged the signature I wanted from the "all" category onto my account name. It worked. I don't know how intuitive this is in an absolute sense, but as a long time mac user, I should have tried this much sooner. dduff617 said, on April 4, 2006 2:54 PM:
i can verify what kelly said. you can create a common set of signatures, then drag them to whatever accounts you want. however, i ran into a problem when doing this. after creating a sig and dragging some sigs into certain accounts, i found that when i hit the close button for the preferences window, it would not close. it simply sat there. no beep. no error message. i quit mail. restarted it, tried again. same problem. finally, after poking around, i tried adding a signature to my gmail account, which was the last of my four accounts that didn't have at least one. then i was able to close the dialog. so i am not completely sure, but i suspect there is a minor bug that requires you to have at least one signature for each account. i tried going back to the settings and deleting the sole sig from my gmail account just to see if i could reproduce the bug and i could not, so maybe it what happened to me was just some other more obscure bug or preference corruption or something. Nic Nichols said, on April 6, 2006 9:25 AM:
I made a html page, dropped it in safari, made a web archive, then changed its name to the web archive in my mail prefs and replaced the old webarchive.. which should have made what I created in html my new sig.... but when I try it, it shows a '?', no image but the link works.. SO... can Mail.app display an image in the sig? I am baffled.... Thanks!! NIC Randy Padorr-Black said, on February 8, 2007 8:55 AM:
Maybe I'm missing something,butt... Tamsin Ainslie said, on February 21, 2007 9:18 PM:
I have created an image (.gif) to use as a signature at the end of my emails, but it won't drag and drop - why?????? I can't figure out how to attach it to my emails as a signature... can you help? Timbob said, on March 27, 2007 11:48 AM:
I'm also having trouble. I'm running Mail v2.1 and my preferences does not have all the options displayed in your example of the Mail preferences gui...What the hell? Only Account info, Mailbox behaviors, Advanced ruth Hollis said, on April 7, 2007 12:50 PM:
on a recent 'software update' - selected under the upper left apple on my screen -- i lost my mail app as i knew it. ruth Bill said, on May 9, 2007 12:43 PM:
When I try to add my signature to an email nothing happens. I have tried to include my signature using Preferences - although the correct details appear for some reason the 'choose signature' box remains grey with the word 'none' showing. Morgan said, on July 26, 2007 1:51 PM:
I went to add a signature in Mail 2.1 on OSX 10.4.8 and couldn't find it. So I checked the help file and is says, "File>preferences>Signatures" But when I go File>preferences, I go directly to the Accounts dialog box, and there's no option to select anything other than accounts; no icons for General, Accounts, Junk Mail, etc. What do I have to do to get the Preferences dialog box back to normal? amir said, on July 31, 2007 3:15 AM:
hi, I cannot seem to add a signature to my emails. When i click on mail - preferrences, there is no tab for signatures. Please advise amir Aamir said, on August 23, 2007 3:42 AM:
why i use my signature in new email and then i attache some file with email then at receiving side signature comes inside html file. why signature does not show in main email. rachel said, on November 15, 2007 6:19 AM:
is there a way to attach a graphic logo to the signature so that underneath my emails my logo or graphic appears instead of having to use generic type supplied in the signature section justin said, on December 3, 2007 3:15 PM:
Here's one for you: thanks! Tom said, on December 23, 2007 8:02 PM:
DID ANYONE SOLVE THIS (I AM ENCOUNTERING IT TOO): I went to add a signature in Mail 2.1 on OSX 10.4.8 and couldn't find it. So I checked the help file and is says, "File>preferences>Signatures" But when I go File>preferences, I go directly to the Accounts dialog box, and there's no option to select anything other than accounts; no icons for General, Accounts, Junk Mail, etc. What do I have to do to get the Preferences dialog box back to normal? Posted by: Morgan at July 26, 2007 1:51 PM Kathi said, on January 27, 2008 8:22 AM:
When I opened Mail Preferences, I was only seeing the Accounts window, no rules, no signatures, no compose tabs etc. To fix this, go to Mail and then Preferences, then in the upper toolbar click View, then View Toolbar. Voila! It appears! This has been bugging me forever, and I see that some others had the same problem. Good luck! aboubakar said, on February 24, 2008 5:08 AM:
i wanna different styles of my signature.so kindly send me my names signature..... FIXED said, on February 26, 2008 7:17 AM:
OH MY GOD, KATHI, THANKYOU! Matt said, on February 29, 2008 11:54 AM:
I have the same problem as Posted by: amir at July 31, 2007 3:15 AM. My signatures will not show up in my new e-mail account on Mac Mail. First they just would not show up automatically, but then I tried the dis-enable/enable trick suggested and now I can't even select a signature for that account (they appear in preferences, but not in actual e-mail and cannot be selected. This is the only account where this is a problem. Help! Matt Cliff Kirk said, on May 21, 2008 8:11 AM:
I have exactly the same problem as the post "Randy Padorr-Black at February 8, 2007 8:55 AM". I dragged a jpg image into the right hand box, deleted the typed sample signature and it all works as far as my Mac is concerned.. its just that any other person receiving emails from me only gets my signature in the form of an attachment. This is maddening! I am new to Mac and they are 100billion times better than PC's, but when they have a problem, it seems A) completely weird and B) unsolvable. Help! Cliff Dozza said, on July 28, 2008 10:02 AM:
If you want full control over your email in Apple mail, logos and CSS styling, go to http://www.createarevolution.com/blog/2008/02/07/creating-an-html-signature-in-apple-mail/ Erin said, on September 3, 2008 11:00 PM:
Thank you Kathi. This has been driving me nuts. YOU ARE A STAR. richard said, on October 2, 2008 4:50 AM:
I cant even select choose signature - what do i do then? Rich said, on October 3, 2008 2:15 AM:
HI, Isaac said, on October 13, 2008 7:40 PM:
I placed my company logo in my signature, but when I send the e-mail the logo comes up as an attachment, and I don't want people to be able to download the logo.. dennisthemennis said, on January 21, 2009 11:34 AM:
Kathi! Thankyou so much your comment has sorted a nightmare of a problem even apple couldnt solve. Pepe said, on May 14, 2009 2:46 PM:
Hi, does anyone know how to attach a logo (jpeg image) to your signature without the other person receiving it as an attachment? Just the image as part of the signature? Thanks a lot Judith van Praag said, on July 1, 2009 8:04 AM:
Excellent advice. Thank you! nico said, on January 27, 2010 3:47 AM:
Hi, I'm quite used to Mail and have had no problems with signatures so far, until now. I started working at a company where the signature for new (compose) e-mails is different from the one that I use for replies and forwards. But opposed to Outlook, I cannot find an option for using different kinds of signatures in Mail? Does anyone know how I can change my signature for replies/forwards? Thanks in advance. Best,
Lauren said, on September 19, 2010 1:31 PM:
Thanks so much! This answered my questions perfectly! Rich said, on July 29, 2011 7:39 AM:
I had the same problem in Apple's new Lion 10.7 with mail version 5. Somehow my main account was duplicated, and by disabling the duplicate, my signatures worked. Thanks! iris said, on September 1, 2011 3:37 PM:
Re the signature problem....Under the preferences/signatures, you have two columns. The Left column names your All your signatures and the other heading is you provider - These seem to appear automatically Donna said, on March 13, 2012 11:57 AM:
I can't thank you enough. Your instructions were the only ones that worked for me. Donna Julian said, on November 12, 2012 12:10 AM:
Hi Dave,
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!Check This Out Too... |
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Thank you for the help, but in my signatures preference panel, the account names do not even appear, but jus the "All signatures". Do you have any idea why?