All Things Google: Custom Signatures in Gmail

You may know that you can use Gmail as email central for sending and receiving email from all your accounts, including your work-related .edu email. I personally love this option because it creates a personal archive of email that goes with you in case you change or add jobs. It also keeps me from having to log into different sites to manage my email.

However, I always felt as though one feature was missing: custom signatures. In my case, I don’t want to use a signature for my personal email account, but I’d like to have one when I send email through Gmail in my academic persona. Using the Canned Responses feature in Gmail labs has been discussed before on ProfHacker as a solution. But for me it was a bit of a hassle to manually choose to add the signature every time I wanted to use it.

Somehow, Google always seems to come through with just the right addition to its services. The company recently announced a rich text signature feature, and within that announcement is the solution to the signature issue. In the Settings menu, simply scroll down to the signature section and create a signature for your separate accounts. When you create a new email and select a From: address that has an associated signature, the signature will appear at the end of the email. This post on the Gmail blog has specific directions.

This feature is helpful for more than just your regular campus email. You might be working as the editor of a journal and could create a custom signature for that account. Perhaps you are directing students to email you through a different email address which you are funneling through your main Gmail account; your custom signature could include a reminder of when you process email from students.

Custom email signatures have been on my Google wishlist for awhile, and I’m excited that the company came through with it. What other Google features would enhance your use of the company’s products?

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user amylynnehicks.]