How to add an email signature in iPhone Mail
Mail, the email app that comes on the iPhone and iPad, has a signature field designed for a single line of text. Even so, it accepts a formatted signature if you paste it properly, and it keeps tables, colours and hosted images.
The tricky part is getting the signature onto the phone. If you saved your signature to your account, the easiest way is to sign in to SignatureForever with Safari on the iPhone itself, open it from My signatures, choose iPhone / iPad as the destination and copy it from there. Without an account, download the HTML on your computer, open it on the iPhone and copy all of it.
Steps on the iPhone
- 01
On the iPhone, open your signature in Safari (from My signatures or from the downloaded HTML) and copy it with iPhone / iPad as the destination.
- 02
Open Settings › Apps › Mail › Signature. On older iOS versions it is Settings › Mail › Signature.
- 03
If you have several accounts, choose “Per Account” and tap the work one.
- 04
Delete “Sent from my iPhone” and press and hold the empty field until Paste appears.
- 05
Tap Paste. If the signature loses its formatting, shake the iPhone and tap “Undo Change Attributes”.
- 06
Go back to save it and write a new email to see the result.
Shaking the phone sounds like a joke, but it is iOS's undo gesture. Sometimes, right after you paste, Mail applies its own text style to the signature; undoing that attribute change brings back the colours, sizes and tables you copied.
If you change your signature later, you need to paste it again on the iPhone: Mail's signature is stored on the phone and does not update on its own. When your job title, phone number or logo changes, add it to the to-do list for that change, just like updating the signature on your computer.
If you also use Mail on an iPad, set the signature there with the same steps: each device keeps its own, and the iPad doesn't copy it from the iPhone.
What breaks in iPhone Mail and how to avoid it
When reading received signatures, iPhone Mail is almost as permissive as Apple Mail on the Mac: it shows flex, grid, background images and base64. Only web fonts stay halfway. The real limit here is the screen: a signature wider than the phone shrinks or gets cut, which is why a total width of 600 pixels or less is still the rule.
In practice, what spoils a signature on the iPhone most is not CSS but huge images: a photo of several megabytes takes a while to load on mobile data. Use images at the size they are displayed and host them on a CDN.
The iPhone's dark mode has the same effect: if your text is pure black and the signature has no background, it is barely readable at night. A dark grey such as #333333 looks right on both the light and the dark screen.
| Feature | iPhone Mail |
|---|---|
| <table> layout | Yes |
| display:flex and CSS grid | Yes |
| <style> block in the head | Yes |
| background-image in CSS | Yes |
| Images as data URI (base64) | Yes |
| border-radius | Yes |
| letter-spacing | Yes |
| text-transform:uppercase | Yes |
| Web fonts (Google Fonts) | – Partial |
| max-width and percentage widths | Yes |
| margin on <td> | Yes |
| <img> without explicit width and height | Yes |
In total: 0 unsupported, 1 partial and 11 fully supported, out of the 12 features in the matrix. Why each one fails, in the full matrix.
Common mistakes
Emailing the signature to yourself and copying it
Copying from a received email can drag that message's styles along. Copy it from your signature page in Safari.
Not undoing the attribute change
If after pasting you see the signature in plain text with no colours, shake the iPhone before touching anything else.
Using “All Accounts” by mistake
With that option, your work signature also goes out from your personal email.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the signature on the iPhone?
In Settings › Apps › Mail › Signature. On older iOS versions, Settings › Mail › Signature.
I pasted my signature and it lost its formatting. What do I do?
Shake the iPhone right after pasting and tap “Undo Change Attributes”. The signature gets its design back.
Does this guide work for the Gmail app on iPhone?
No, Gmail has its own settings. Follow the Gmail for iPhone guide.
Are you an AI agent? This is also available as an MCP server at signatureforever.com/mcp