Where are email Signatures stored Outlook?

Signing off emails with a personalized message is one of those things we all take for granted. But what if you need to retrieve or edit these messages later? Or maybe you want to use someone else's custom email signature instead? In this case, it helps to know where they're located and how to change them. Let's explore the location of your Outlook email signatures so you don't lose track of important documents like contact information.

We'll also cover how to switch between different signatures as well as locate your old ones from within Microsoft Office Outlook 2016.

Where are email Signatures stored?

When you open up Outlook, there will be several default tabs along the left side of your screen. If you hover over "Mail" (or whatever tab contains your inbox), you should see a small arrow appear next to each message box. When you click on that arrow, you'll see some options pop up underneath. The first option says “Open Message” which takes you directly into the message itself. The other two say either “"Edit Signature" or “"Add New Email Signature". Click whichever applies to you, but keep in mind that most people won't have much reason to mess around with their email signatures.

If you choose to go through the Edit Signature route, you'll get taken right to the editor pane. This shows you everything about the current signature that was created by Outlook. It includes any pictures or logos associated with the sender, date range, name of person who sent it, etc., just like Gmail does today.

You can then adjust certain settings such as choosing whether to display it across every client or only send it out via mail clients. Once you've finished editing, hit Save at the top-right corner of the window. Then check under My Stuff for the file called sig_outlook_default.xml.

This is the XML file containing your new signature. You can now save its contents somewhere easily accessible so you don't forget about it again. We recommend putting it inside your Documents directory. To do this, simply drag that file onto your desktop and drop it wherever you'd like. Windows 10 users might consider using File Explorer's context menu to make copies easier.

There may be cases where it doesn't automatically create the sig_outlook_default.xml file, meaning you'll need to manually copy your edited signature to this location yourself. Unfortunately, there isn't currently any way to delete this file after saving it. For best results, always back up files like this before making major changes.

To view your existing email signatures, head over to Mail " Preferences " Account Settings " Manage Accounts " E-mail Options. Scroll down until you spot Customize e-mail header fields. From here, select Add/Remove Fields. Hit Browse... for the Open File dialog, navigate to C:/Users/"your username"/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Outlook/signature/sig_customization.html. Select OK once more.

Here, you'll find all of the customization links used for creating your email signature. They include the same sort of stuff found in the Default tab mentioned earlier. Any additional graphics, images, and text added this time will show up here too. Just double-click anywhere in the area below to customize your own signature.

In addition to the above locations, you could try searching online for instructions specific to your version of Outlook. There may even be a guide specifically written for your needs! Of course, none of us wants to spend hours trying to figure something out ourselves only to discover we missed the obvious solution, so feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below.

One final tip, especially useful if you tend to work with lots of accounts: Make sure you set your default signature page within Outlook. Head over to Mail " Set Defaults. Under Choose Default Signature Page, pick the profile whose signature you plan to use often. Doing so makes everything quicker since you won't have to fiddle with multiple pages anymore.

The downside is that this means you'll have to manually type in your account info whenever you sign off emails. However, this is still better than having to search for a particular email address every single time.

Where are Outlook 365 Signatures stored?

While many features remain identical between paid versions of Office 2016 and 2019, the process for adding email signatures differs slightly. After opening your main mailbox, scroll down past the tabs towards the bottom of your interface. Here, you'll see a button labeled “Manage Profiles” followed by another labelled “"Create Profile." Both of these buttons look similar, though the second one has an arrow pointing upwards rather than downwards.

Once clicked, you'll see a list of available templates for signing off outgoing emails. These come in four categories: Business, Personal, Appendices, and Other. Each category contains numerous designs, although not all profiles allow for customization per category.

Personal signatures aren't very common among enterprise users, but you might encounter them during job interviews if you work in tech. Otherwise, chances are you probably won't ever need to worry about changing anything.

How do I recover my email signature in Outlook?

It's possible to uninstall the entire program without losing your customized signature. Simply visit Control Panel " Programs and Features. Look for outlook.exe. Right-click on it and select Uninstall. A confirmation prompt asking if you really wish to remove it will appear. Answer yes and wait.

Next, restart Outlook. Upon doing so, you'll receive a notification saying that an update is required. Accept it and continue booting up. Within seconds, you should notice that Outlook no longer displays your previous signature. Instead, it asks you to fill out a form explaining why you're leaving.

Afterward, you should see a link leading back to your desktop app. Clicking this will give you the opportunity to download a backup of your modified signature. Alternatively, you can browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Officeoot\office16\profoudata\en-US\setup\backupstore\BackupStore.bin. Inside BackupStore, you'll see various folders dedicated to individual months. Locate the month your last backup took place, then right-click on it to extract the.bak file.

Now that you have your original signature back, you can restore it within Outlook by going to File " Info " Account Settings " Manage Accounts " E-mail Options. Find Customized e-mail header fields and select Restore. Follow the prompts to finish setting up your signature.

Where are Outlook HTML Signatures stored?

HTML signatures were previously known as Rich Text signatures because they contained non-editable elements, including hyperlinks. Over time, however, developers decided to replace these with editable content. As a result, you won't see any sigs generated using this method unless you manually import them.

Fortunately, this procedure is pretty straightforward. First, go to Mail " Preferences " Advanced Tools " Send / Receive " Configuration Editor. Next, enter cmd into the Enter the command field and press Ctrl + V on your keyboard. This will bring up a black DOS window. Now, input the following line:

C:\Windows\System32\metsngr.dll,-202112 "%1" %systemroot%\explorer.exe -nogui -f

Hit Enter twice to execute the command. Press Y to confirm overwriting metsngr.dll. Restart your system and you should immediately start seeing signatures in your browser. To avoid confusion, you can rename this file explorer.htm and give it whatever extension suits your preferences.

For example, you can call it outlookSig.hta and leave the rest of the filename intact. While this works fine, it's recommended that you stick to commonly recognized extensions. That said, you shouldn't run into any issues.

Of course, if you prefer, you can skip all of this hassle and enjoy a cleaner experience by downloading our unofficial SigGen tool. With this utility, you can generate signatures straight within your web browsers' menus. No registry edits or special permissions needed. Best of all, it supports tons of popular services, including Google Apps, iCloud, Exchange Server, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Zoho, AOL, and others.

As long as you remember to turn off automatic updates for your browser when you close it, you'll never encounter a problem. Plus, the resulting signatures will actually function properly without needing any tweaking. All you'll need to do afterward is upload them to your server and direct recipients to the appropriate URL.

And that concludes our exploration of how to manage your Outlook email signatures. Hopefully, you learned enough to help improve your productivity when sending off emails. If you're looking for alternatives, check out our article detailing how to personalize email signatures outside of Microsoft Word. And while you're browsing, please don't overlook our tips to speed up Outlook performance.

Outlook has become one of our favorite tools for managing emails. It's fast and easy to use with great features like rules and filters. But it also offers more advanced options, such as notes or even calendar appointments!

One thing many people don't know is how to customize their custom Outlook email signatures. If you've never done this before, we're here to help explain where they go and what happens if you delete them from Outlook entirely. Let us show you where to look in Outlook so your email signature appears correctly every time you send off an important message.

How do I recover my Email signature in Outlook?

If you want to open up your Outlook Signature file again, there isn't too much trouble figuring out which one you need. Open any new mail window within Microsoft Office 2016 (or later) by clicking File " New Mail Message. This will bring up a small box at the bottom left corner of your screen labeled Insert Text Here. Simply click inside this text field and type in your email address followed by @outlook.com. The resulting email signature should appear below.

You'll notice that once you do this, all other fields within the same window start showing empty boxes instead. That's because these other fields have been replaced by your own email signature. To get rid of those extra fields, head over to the top menu bar under Home & Info, then scroll down until you see the header Field Information. You can remove each of the unnecessary fields using the Delete button next to each section. Once you finish doing this, you should only be left with your email signature.

Note that while you may not see some fancy formatting or graphics, this still functions just fine. In fact, most users won't care about having pretty pictures or special effects added into their signatures. All they want is something simple yet professional looking that stands apart from everyone else's.

Now that you understand how to retrieve your default email signature back in Outlook, let's move onto why this feature disappears sometimes.

How do I restore my signature in Outlook?

When you first create your email signature in Outlook, everything works perfectly well. However, after a few weeks or months pass by, you might begin receiving messages saying that your account doesn't contain a valid signature. When this occurs, it typically means that either Outlook deleted your signature altogether or perhaps another program removed it.

Since Outlook stores all its data locally, this makes sense since it would lose track of changes made elsewhere. Unfortunately, finding your lost signatures can prove difficult unless you know where to search.

To locate your missing email signature in Outlook, navigate to Start " Settings " Accounts " [Your Account] " Personal Options "Signature. There, make sure that Show me my complete profile including personalized information is set to On. Then, select View My Complete Profile.

This will take you to a page containing all sorts of personal details related to your Outlook settings, including your name, birthday, gender, location, phone number, etc. Scroll down past all this information until you reach the Signature heading. Next to Signature, you'll see two dropdown menus underneath. Select Customize Signature... and choose Edit from the selection.

Then, enter whatever information you'd like to add to your email signature. Make sure to check Save Changes when finished, otherwise, your changes won't stick around forever. And remember—if you ever need to change anything, simply repeat the process above.

Where are my Outlook Signatures stored?

In case your Outlook installation got corrupted somehow, or maybe someone changed it without telling you, chances are that your email signatures aren't anywhere near where you think they are. They are actually located deep within Microsoft Office itself.

The reason for this lies in how Outlook handles signatures. Instead of saving your signature directly to your Documents directory, Windows uses a hidden system called Temporary Internet Files. Whenever Outlook encounters a new signature, it opens it up within a separate tab. Afterward, it saves it away somewhere in the bowels of Office, but we really couldn't figure out exactly where.

That said, if you want to edit your existing signature right now, you could always manually copy it over to your Documents folder. Just try navigating to Your User Name " AppData " Local " Temp Internet Files " Docs " [your document].

For future reference though, it's best to learn how to quickly view the contents of each different user's documents folder. Head over to Start Menu " Run " explorer.exe /e/%USERPROFILE%.

Once you launch the Explorer app using this method, press Ctrl + A to highlight both folders named Users and Computer respectively. Now, double-click on the Users item and head down until you spot the folder labelled TempInternetFiles. Inside, you should see several items listed, including.cab files,.dll, and others. Double-clicking one of these files reveals the actual location of your signature file. Keep in mind that you'll need administrator privileges to do this.

As mentioned earlier, however, if you're experiencing issues with getting your signatures to work properly, this probably didn't happen.

Why did my signature disappear in Outlook?

While it sounds scary, deleting your signatures from Outlook shouldn't cause any major problems. Typically, signatures disappear from Outlook whenever one of three things occur:

1.) An old version of Excel gets updated and removes support for older versions of Outlook.

2.) Another application deletes the file associated with your signature.

3.) The PST file that contains your signatures becomes corrupt.

Fortunately, none of these situations apply to you unless you recently upgraded to Office 2019. For example, if you used to receive error codes stating that your signature was invalid, that issue no longer exists in newer editions of Excel. Similarly, if Outlook suddenly stopped recognizing your signature, it likely happened due to software updates outside of your control. Lastly, if you keep losing your signatures often, checking whether your PST files are damaged can save you lots of time troubleshooting.

Simply run a scan using CCleaner or similar programs to ensure that nothing malicious is affecting your PC, and restarting your machine afterward should fix the problem. Otherwise, it may be worth contacting your IT department for further assistance.

Hopefully, our outlook guide helped clear up any confusion you had regarding how to recover your email signatures and why they disappeared in the first place. Give it a shot and enjoy adding your very own customized signature in Outlook.

An effective way of branding yourself as professional is by having a customized email signature. It’s one of those things we all use every day without giving it much thought, but if you want to stand out and grab attention with your emails, you should consider adding a well-designed email signature.

A good email signature not only makes your correspondence look more personal, but also helps people identify you faster. Having a consistent design for your signature will help them recognize who sent them messages or attachments (it could be work related documents, family photos, etc.).

The best part about using an email signature is that it doesn't have to take up too many lines of text. A simple signature goes a long way in making your message appear less formal and more friendly. In this article, let's explore how to customize your Outlook email signature and where they get stored.

How do I export my Signature from Outlook 365?

If you already added a signature to your account settings page in Microsoft Office 365, then there’s no need to worry. Your mailbox has a feature called MySignature which allows you download your email signature. Here’s how to do so:

Open any new mail in your inbox.

Click on File " Options " Mail Setup.

Under Manage Accounts & Add Account, click Email Settings.

On the right side pane, under Send/Receive area, scroll down until you see “Send / Receive - Customize This Area – Personalization” Click on it and select Show next to MySignature.

This opens a new window titled MySignature.

You'll now see two tabs—Personalization and Security—on the left pane labeled Select Files.

In the middle section, click Export All.

Select the file type (.ics) and hit Save As. A pop-up box will open asking whether to save the file locally or across SharePoint sites. Choose Local option.

After saving, the file gets downloaded to a.ics format. To view the content of the file, double-click on it. The signature appears at the bottom of the screen.

To delete the signature, simply disable its checkbox. Alternatively, you can remove the entire row by clicking anywhere outside the table border. When done, go to Tools " Clear Table Data.

Alternatively, you can choose to import your existing signature into Outlook via File Explorer. Open Windows Explorer, navigate to C:/Users/"your_username"/.office365/12.0/Mail/_Sent MAPI Messages/, and rename the file extension from.ics to.csv and upload it back into Outlook.

Once imported, follow steps 1 through 7 above to extract your signature from this CSV file.

How do I transfer my signature from Outlook 365 to another computer?

Since these signatures are linked to your profile within Outlook 365, transferring them between computers requires logging into the same online portal again. But don’t fret! We've got some solutions in case you forget passwords.

Let's say you just switched phones. If you're logged into a different device than what you used previously, here's how to reset your password:

Go to outlook.live.com/preview#forgotPasswordMessageId=1&tabName=Account.

Enter your User Name and Password. Now log into your old machine.

Head over to outlook.live.com/preview#resetPasswordPageId=3&redirectUrl=/common/account-settings.html.

Follow the prompts once you enter your credentials. Once done, sign in to your original device.

Finally, head back to your current device and repeat step 3 above. Remember to refresh the browser after entering the new code.

Here's how to transfer your signature from one PC to another:

Launch Outlook on both devices connected to the internet. On the second device, click on File " Info.

Find the email address field located on top. Enter the first few characters of your email address followed by @outlook.com. Make sure to include spaces before and after the @ symbol.

Now launch Outlook on your primary device. In the upper-right corner of the window, click on Home tab " Mail " Import/Export.

From the dropdown menu, select Create New Folder. Then, give it a name like "Signatures". Hit OK.

Navigate to the location you created earlier via File Explorer. Find and highlight the.ics file inside. Drag and drop it onto the newly created folder. After successful completion, the file should automatically convert into a.pst file.

Double-check to confirm that everything looks okay. Otherwise, try importing your signature manually. Launch the Mail app. Go to View " Message Format " Attachments. From the list of options, select Other.

Then, browse to the location you created earlier via File Explorer. Find and highlight the converted file inside. Finally, drag and drop it onto the Attachment button. After successfully completing, the file should automatically attach to the incoming mail.

For security purposes, make sure to keep your exported.ics signature away from prying eyes. Store it somewhere safe where nobody else except you would ever stumble upon it.

How do I copy a signature in Outlook 365?

Outlook stores your signature data inside a single.ics file. So, copying your signature involves exporting the file and keeping it safe. However, doing so isn't difficult since the process is pretty similar to downloading your signature via MySignature tool discussed earlier.

First off, you must create a separate local drive on your system. For example, change the default installation directory of Windows 10 to D:\\ProgramData\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Dialogs\Attachments.

Next, locate the.ics file that contains your signature. Browse to the target folder and extract the contents inside. Since most users tend to store their important folders on Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc., we recommend creating a dedicated folder named Signatures.

Store the extracted signature into the Signatures folder. Rename the file accordingly. Next time you refer to your signature file during setup, remember to paste the correct filename instead.

Once pasted, close Outlook completely. Head over to Control Panel " System Configuration " Administrative Tools. Navigate to Services " Sync Center Manager.

Right-click on Sync Center Client Service and select Properties. Check the Stop Value column against 0.

Lastly, restart your machine. Upon reboot, Outlook won’t prompt you to reattach your signature anymore. Instead, you can directly send mails with attached signatures.

Where is the signature stored in Outlook 365?

Your Outlook signature is stored in three places. First, it resides in the root directory of your hard drive. Second, it exists inside the.PST file associated with each individual user. And thirdly, it lives inside the database of Exchange Server. Let’s dig deeper to understand this better.

Inside your main PST file, you’ll notice several subfolders. These folders contain various information regarding your subscriptions and accounts. Inside each account folder lies the actual PST file containing all your personal details.

Similarly, inside the Default Users container, you’ll discover numerous PST files stacked vertically. Each of these PST files corresponds to a specific user. Most importantly, the file ending with.001 contains the attachment manager—a place where your attachments reside.

So yes, if you want to know exactly where your signature files exist, head over to Start Menu > Accessories > Command Prompt. Type dir c:\\users\[user]\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.microsoftexchange.mailarchive2x\*.pst. Press Enter to display all relevant results.

For future reference, learn how to share large files quickly in Outlook.