Apple Mail can be a problematic email client at times, especially when it comes to email signature images not displaying correctly.
When your email signature images are not showing up in Apple Mail, there are a few ways you can fix this, depending on the situation and the symptoms.
Let’s take a look at a few different scenarios.
Images Are Not Visible When Installing an Email Signature
So, you’ve created a flash new email signature and pasted it into the email signature window in Apple Mail and cant get the images to show up? Well, believe it or not, this is quite a common problem, which is easy to fix.
If you have images in your email signature, it is likely created in HTML format. So, when you paste your email signature into the new signature window, you want to ensure it is still formatted in HTML.
To fix this problem:
When installing your email signature, ensure you untick the box at the bottom of the signature preview window which says “Always match my default message font” as this will turn your email signature into plain text format, instead of keeping the HTML format of the signature.
Images in Email Signature Are Not Visible When Composing a New Email
When you create a HTML email signature in Apple Mail, you would expect the images to be visible when you compose a new email, right? Well, that’s not always the case. Occasionally, the images in your HTML signature won’t be shown and you will see plain text instead.
This happens because your Apple Mail is set to compose new emails using Plain Text format, instead of Rich Text format. Also, for some reason, Apple Mail refers to HTML format as Rich Text. So, when you select Rich Text format, it actually includes HTML format too.
To fix this problem:
Open Apple Mail and do the following steps:
Click on Mail > Preferences > Composing tab > Message format > Select “Rich Text”.
Images in Email Signature Are Not Automatically Downloading When Viewing an Email
When you receive emails in Apple Mail, sometimes the images in email signatures won’t automatically download, and this can be really annoying.
Although there can be a few reasons for this sort of thing happening, most of the time it’s because your Apple Mail is set to not load remote content in messages.
To fix this problem:
Open Apple Mail and do the following steps:
For macOS 11 Big Sur and below: Mail > Preferences > Viewing tab > Ensure that Load remote content in messages is ticked.
For macOS 12 Monterey and above: Mail > Preferences > Privacy tab > Ensure that Protect Mail Activity is ticked. If Protect Mail Activity is not ticked, ensure Block All Remote Content is not ticked as well.
Other reasons this problem might happen:
- Your anti-virus program is detecting a threat with the email signature and automatically blocks the image downloads when it scans the incoming email. In this case, you would need to make an exception rule in your anti-virus application.
- The mail server is blocking the image downloads of incoming emails due to policies that have been applied. To stop this from happening, you would need to contact your server administrator.
Images in Email Signature Are Not Visible When Replying to an Email
When replying to emails, your email signature shows up as plain text and doesn’t have any images in it and also loses its formatting. This happens when someone sends you a plain text email, and you reply to it.
By default, Apple Mail will use the format which the email was created with when responding to emails. So, if someone sends you a plain text email and you reply, it will remain in plain text format.
To fix this problem:
You can change the way Apple Mail handles replies and tell it to reply to emails using your chosen message format.
Open Apple Mail and do the following steps:
Click on Mail > Preferences > Composing tab > Ensure that “Use the same message format as the original message” is unticked.
My client is using iCloud for her email? I do not have access to her machine. Is there a way to install remotely?
Hi John,
If you don’t have access to her machine, you could log onto her iCloud account from your computer if you know her password and then install the signature.
Hey there.
I have created an email signature in Apple Mail. It is some text, followed by a small image.
I am having an issue where when I have a conversation thread (more than 1 reply), it seems to copy the image over and over again. I end up with 3-4 of my email signature image at the bottom.
Anyone had this issue before and do you know how to resolve it?
Hi Isaac,
Generally, if you have your email signature set up to insert on replies as well as new messages, the number of times the email signature will appear at the bottom will be the same as the number of times you replied to the email thread.
So, if you replied to the email 4 times, you will likely see 4 of your email signature images at the bottom.
Hope that makes sense 🙂
Hello John,
I’m having an issue with pasting an HTML signature into the email signature preferences in Apple Mail. I’m able to copy the HTML into every other person’s email in the office, but not this one computer.
When I paste the signature, it distorts the images attached to the signature and puts them on different lines. This issue is not happening for anyone else, just this computer.
Hi Andrew,
It sounds like your image might be getting blown up to be larger than usual? If this is the case, you need to make your image 72 DPI. If your image is larger than 72 DPI it will blow out to be large in Apple Mail. Take a look at this article for more information about this: https://blog.gimm.io/how-to-fix-email-signature-images-changing-size/
If you’ve got an account with Gimmio, feel free to email support@gimm.io with a screenshot of the issue and we will take a look into it for you!
Hey Gordon,
I am using the mail app on my mac and have an email signature with several images. When I send any significant messages beyond just the signature it converts my images into attachments in Gmail accounts only. So if I open the BCC I sent myself in my mail app it is fine however, if I open it in my Gmail on any given browser… no dice. Also, if I just send my signature, the signature appears fine… only when I couple it with my email and any other attachments which I need for work. I have tried all your solutions and nothing seems to work… hoping you had some outside advice. Thank you.
-Jared
Hi Jared,
That is very strange! I definitely haven’t heard of that one before!
My only guess here would be that for some reason Gmail is scanning the message and if it already finds an attachment in it, it decides to attach all the images in the signature as well. But that seems far fetched…
What happens if you simply send an email with content in the body with your email signature, with no attachments? Does Gmail show the signature correctly?
Hey Gordon
My signature on mail is text and a small imagem and I just went throught all theses posts about the signature problems with mac mail and recently, as the mail has the new option of a more user friendly attachments at the end of the message instead of the inline attachments, when I send an e-mail with or without attachments, when I open it on outlook for example it all shows as attachements.
Do you have any fix for this situation?
It would have to show my signature image inline and attachments as attachments not inlined.
Thanks!
Hi Sofia,
There can be a number of reasons that email signature images get converted to attachments. Feel free to take a look at this article which explains a bit more about attachments arising from email signatures: https://blog.gimm.io/how-to-fix-email-signature-images-being-added-as-attachments/
Hi Gordon,
I am trying to create an email signature (and stationery) that consists of a transparent rectangle with a coloured border, inside which is text e.g. name, telephone and email. Immediately under rectangle is a solid color rectangle the same width as the one above and inside it is a white image. There is no gap between the two.
I have tried all sorts of ways but the closest I have got is to do it in two parts: the rectangle above with text inside and the solid colour rectangle below. Trouble is when I save it as a signature I cannot get the two to sit one on top of the other with no gap. Either the solid colour rectangle is positioned to the right and not quite below the bordered rectangle or, if I hit return it sits below it but with a one line gap. The original is perfect. Any ideas how to solve this?
Hi Mervyn,
Just to confirm, are you trying to create your signature using Gimmio, or manually coding it? If you’re manually coding it, there could be a lot of different issues as to why the bottom rectangle doesn’t sit directly below the transparent rectangle. For example, sending emails with Gmail will automatically add spacing between elements in an email signature, and there is no way to change that. If 2 elements need to be together (such as the rectangles), you may need to keep them together in the HTML code rather than separating them into separate tables. If you’re using Gimmio, feel free to send us an email to support@gimm.io and we will happily take a look into the issue for you.
Hi Gordan. I am trying to add a LinkedIn image link to my email signature. I put the image in the signature and then highlight the image and add the link, but it doesnt save as a hyperlink. When I go to test it and create a new email, the image is there but there no link. When I go back in to preferences and check the link it doesnt save, there’s nothing there. ???
Hi Erin,
Oftentimes with Apple Mail and many of the other popular email clients, you cannot click the hyperlink when you’re composing a message (or in the signature preferences either). To get around that, you will need to hold down the Command (or Ctrl on PC) button on your keyboard and click on the link. This all works if the link has been placed into the email signature correctly, of course. If you’re using Gimmio to create your signature, feel free to email us at support@gimm.io for further assistance and we will be glad to help 🙂
Hello, Can you please elaborate more how did you sort out this problem? as we are facing the same linking problem in our company logo. quick reply will be appreciated.
Hello. I created an email signature, and created the HTML code and everything. The signature is working fine on the Gmail, but when on MacBook, it’s becoming background image. Like the texts are getting over the signature. Can’t select or move the signature. Why is this happening?
Hi Tee,
Did you create your signature manually or did you create it using Gimmio? That definitely shouldn’t happen with a Gimmio signature and ill be happy to take a look if that is the case. Feel free to email our support team at support@gimm.io and we will assist you. If you created the signature manually, there could be many reasons for this type of thing happening and I couldn’t give you an exact answer, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, I cannot seem to highlight the image to put a web link on it once it is in the signature box. When the image is in the correct place, I am supposed to be able to highlight it and then click edit to add a link. However, I can’t get the image to highlight for some reason.
Hi Connor,
Generally, we only suggest creating email signatures and adding links outside of Apple Mail and then pasting it into Apple Mail. I wouldn’t add a link to an image when the signature is already installed in Apple Mail as this could cause formatting issues.
What image types, like ‘jpeg, png, gif, pdf or svg will Mac Mails signature except?
Hi Stuart,
I believe that JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF are accepted by Apple Mail so it should be fine to use any of those file types.
Hi Gordan
I have a different issue with my signature in mail.
I am unable to edit the existing signature (that I made years ago) or create a new signature for my new ‘business’ email address which I’ve added to Mail.
When I click ‘Edit signatures’ in a new mail. The box comes up as a blank grey box which I can’t do anything with – there’s no curser – no way of adding any info. The same happens when I go through Preferences – It’s very frustrating. Can you help? Hope so 🙂
Bee
Hi Bee,
I’ve never seen that sort of thing happen where you cannot edit an existing signature in Apple Mail and where its just a grey box. It sounds like it could be some sort of bug in Apple Mail. Perhaps Apple support could take a look at it? Sorry I couldn’t be of further assistance.
Hi Gordan,
I have updated an image for our signature email banner – the file name is the same and it is sitting on our server. When I compose an email I can see the new banner but once I send a test email to myself, in my inbox it is showing the old version of that image.
Hi Addie,
It sounds like the old image is cached somewhere on the server and when an email signature requests the image, it is being served with an old (cached) image. You may need to clear your cache to make it work.
Hi
I have a problem with trying to move a graphic from next to my signature to underneath it, but every time I move it, it jumps back into its old position. I edited it in “signatures”, but to no avail. Is there a fix ?
Hi Marion,
Sometimes it can be difficult to change the styling or layout of an existing email signature inside of Apple Mail (and other email clients too). The email clients themselves aren’t really made for creating/modifying HTML, they only render it. I would suggest using Gimmio’s Email Signature Generator to create your signature. That way, if you have an active subscription, you can always modify it at another time without having any issues.
Hi Gordon,
Why does my email signature not appear on reply or FWD emails?
Thanks!
Hi Lb,
Does your whole email signature disappear or just the images? If it’s just the images and you’re sending from an iPhone or iPad, there is a fix for this explained here: https://blog.gimm.io/images-disappear-when-replying-to-emails-on-iphone-or-ipad/
hi there – i have copied html signature and and unclicked ‘always match my default’ but the images are stcaking on top of each other rather than sitting side by side… do you know how i can make them sit side by side?
I created a signature using a hand written font for my name, however when sending to Outlook the signature changes to a default font. Tried all the options, is it worth using Outlook instead as I never has issues with this when using MS Software?
Hi Martin,
This is likely happening because you don’t have the handwritten font installed on your PC. When choosing a font that is not web-safe on Gimmio, the following warning appears:
Fonts need to be installed on the email recipient’s device to work.
If you use any of our extra fonts ( denoted with an * ), remember that Gimmio is designed to revert to a similar compatible font.
I would suggest using a web-safe font for your email signature. Here’s a list of web-safe fonts: https://blog.gimm.io/what-are-the-best-fonts-for-email-signatures/
Hope this helps.
Macbook won’t save my signatures. EVER. No matter what I do and IStore say I should do a full restore of my Macbook… May be that will help? But now my external hard drive is not being recognised by my Macbook, no matter what I do… I plug it in, enter time machine and the back up disc says last back up March 2019!! So no full restore as I cannot perform a full back up!
Cannot save signatures, cannot do a full back up? IStore couldn’t make heads or tales of why signatures not being saved either….
Hi Lynn,
Unfortunately, I cannot really tell what the issue would be in this case. Perhaps the system is out of disk space and therefore cannot save any new signatures? Sorry I couldn’t help more.
Hi, thanks in advance for your help. On my new 2020 MacBook Air I have 3 mail accounts and each has a different signature. A very strange thing happens when composing an email, I see the correct signature but when I add a recipient in the To: Field, the signature changes (perhaps to a default account) and I’m unable to switch it to the correct signature for the account I’m working with. Any tip would be greatly appreciated as I’ve wasted a ton of time today on this issue.
I have the problem that I see some others have. The preferences window in Signatures cannot be sized to display the + or – buttons so I cannot ADD a signature. I have 108 signatures that are randomly inserted in my emails and I do not wish to lose any in a fix. Please help it’s been like this for over a year now.
Hello,
I also have an email signature in Apple Mail with some text, followed by a small image.
I am having the same issue with the image duplicating three times, but it is happening even when I am composing a new message. The full signature is not duplicating, just the logo image. Do you have a solution for this?
Thank you!
Hi Gordon, thanks for your brilliantly clear instructions!
I have a PNG image in my signature, which works fine. I am trying add a weblink to this image by following all the formal processes: select picture – ctrl+K – enter full web address – click ‘OK”. Once done, the weblink does not show or work in either the signature file, the email while being created, nor in the email received by the recipient. I just can’t work out why this happens – even after experimenting around for hours. Would you have any ideas or hints? Thanks so much for your help! Cheers, Lars
I just have the same question. I’m fighting with this problem for hours now ☹️
Did you found any solution?
Hi I have created my signature using a generator edited the signature file with the HTML code however my company logo never loads however the rest of the signature is good.
Hi there,
I am trying to include my logo in my signature on my ipad mail app. Every time I save it in the signature space under mail preferences, it looks perfect. However, when I go to the mail app and compose a message, the logo in the signature just shows up as ‘null’. How can I fix this? I have done the ‘undo’ trick to save the format in the signature section after pasting but no luck.
I had an email signature in my Apple Mail preferences that I deleted. It had text and a small rectangular image. Now when I try to copy and paste the same signature it doesn’t display the image. I tried adding it as HTML code and it only shows the code when I select signature. Why is this happening?
Hi Alex,
When adding your signature back into Apple Mail, ensure you untick the box at the bottom which says “Always match my default message font” as this will turn your email signature into plain text. If your email signature is still showing up as plain text, try ticking the box at the bottom which says “Place signature above quoted text” and this should make your email signature appear in HTML.
Hello,
I have a problem in Mail (macOS)
the “Show more” link for multiple responses is placed in the signature and not below.
https://i.goopics.net/ox3k7b.png
https://i.goopics.net/988cro.png
is there a solution ?
Hi there
Mac mail signature has worked fine for years for Gmail account, now is not available from drop down menu when creating an email, but is still showing in mail signature preferences. Other email accounts still have signatures available but not Gmail?
Hi Brent,
That is quite bizarre, and I can’t say I’ve heard of this issue before. If the signature is in the mail preferences, I would expect the signature to also be available from the dropdown when composing a new email. Is the signature under “All Signatures” in the preferences? If it’s not, it could be that the signature is only available for a specific account, and it’s not the Gmail one?
Still been battling away with this, been on the phone to apple and they cant seem to fix it. Under signatures there is 5 different signature options. No matter which one I choose for the gmail it doesnt show as an option when I start a new email. But all the signatures work with the other 4 email addresses – none of which are gmail accounts… very frustrating…
For some reason, my signature is now showing a blue question mark where my .png logo is, as well as my 4 icon links to my social media pages. I went through your trouble shooting and none of those options helped. I went and re-downloaded my signature from my account and repasted it in my email, but still not luck. Any thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Usually, when images are showing up with a blue question mark, it means that “Load remote content in messages” is not turned on. The only thing I can suggest is ensuring that the setting is ticked, and then closing and re-opening Apple Mail. Hopefully this works.
Hi there, I have designed an email signature as a PNG, and I’m wanting to insert it into my Gmail signature. That all works fine, but then I send it to a hotmail address and open it in my apple mail app and the signature wont show. It just shows a blue question marks. However sending an email from Gmail to Gmail is fine, and Gmail to the same hotmail address, but opening it in the outlook browser, works fine too. It seems that Apple Mail doesnt want to receive and show the signature image.
I also tried inserting the same signature image into my apple mail hotmail account and sending that to my other Gmail account and that just blew up the signature image to be way too big. So that didn’t work either. But sending it from apple mail to the outlook browser and from apple mail to another apple mail, it works fine. Let me know if you have any thoughts 🙂
Hi Georgia,
By default, Apple Mail restricts the loading of remote content in messages – this is for security reasons. Have you ticked the “Load remote content in messages” tickbox? If you have, try closing and re-opening Apple Mail to see if there are any changes. This should get rid of the blue question marks as these question marks are the typical thing that Apple Mail shows when it cannot download remote images.
As a side note, I would avoid using an image as your whole email signature as it may have some unintended consequences as described here: https://blog.gimm.io/using-an-image-as-your-whole-email-signature-and-why-its-a-bad-idea/
Hi,
I have had one of your email signature for two of our business email accounts since August last year.
I have not fiddled with any settings anywhere but for some reason the images within the signature no longer appear. I have watched your above video & everything is as it should be. Our emails are hosted through gmail (hope that is the correct terminology.)
Then we run them on the laptop & phones through apple mail.
Please help!
Thank you
Kate
🙂
P.s – I can’t seem to figure out if we have an account with you. I was so sure we did but nothing is coming up when I try to login.
Hi Kate,
No problems at all, we will gladly help you out. The best thing would be to email support@gimm.io with some screenshots of what your email signature looks like when composing an email, and also how it looks when it’s received. You could just send a test email to yourself to get the received version of the email. Also if you just send through the email address you might have signed up with, we will be able to take a look for your account. Thanks 🙂
On the Mac OS 12.4 Monterey, the above steps did not work and load remote content in messages is not visible under “viewing,” the way I got the signature images (hosted on the internet) loaded by unselecting “hide IP” in the privacy tab under preference. Make sure “protect mail activity” is unchecked and “block all remote content” is unchecked as well. This is how I got images in signature during composing to show up.
Hi there! every time I try to center the logo on my signature, it automatically aligns left. How do I center it?
Hi,
I have created a new HTML signature for my mac mail, I have successfully managed to add the signature to my mac mail and it works perfectly fine. whereas when you compose a new message for some reason the signature is editable meaning I can add and delete text from the signature which I really don’t want happening.
Is there a fix to this via the settings or have I missed something in the HTML code.
Would really appreciate if someone could help me out with this.
Hello Haider,
This is entirely normal behavior for most email applications. Since an email signature is just HTML, it is basically just inserting that HTML at the end of your email when you compose and/or reply. It is no different than manually pasting your email signature at the bottom of the email when composing an email. Unfortunately, there is no way to change this.
Hello, thank you for your very helpful instructions. Unfortunately I have not been able to fix my problem. I tried to update my signature and now when I open an email to compose a new one no signature is showing and where you select signature when composing the options are either ‘none’ or edit signatures. It no longer has the option of Signature 1 etc. In preferences, signature at the bottom it says choose signature with a drop down menu, ‘None’ is the selected option but the box is greyed out so I am not able to choose anything from the drop down menu. Any ideas how I may resolve this please?
Many thanks Courtney
Hi Courtney,
Thanks for your message. Here are our instructions for installing an email signature to Apple Mail (macOS): https://blog.gimm.io/add-email-signature-apple-mail/
It sounds like you might have added your email signature to the “All Signatures” section on the left-hand side in the Signatures window. You will need to select your email account from the left-hand side (not All Signatures), otherwise, the signature won’t be available when you compose a message (as you described). Hope this helps.
Hi Gordan. After updating to OS Ventura a new problem has occurred… when replying to a message all “logos” go to the bottom of the email, even the one from the sender. I have the signature set to “place signature above quoted text”. The text goes to the top, but the logo goes to the bottom. Thank you so very much! Carolyn
Hello
I have a client with an Apple Mac Book, I tried to insert the email signature from Gimmio and the image did seem a bit larger, but all the text that was supposed to be next to it – fell under the image and lost all of its detailing and design. It works 100% on Gmail.
I did see a comment about the rich text, could this be the problem?
It also wouldn’t load in a composed (unsent) email, can it be seen in a sent test email?
T.I.A
Hi Gabriella,
That is a bit strange that the text is below the image when it’s meant to be next to it. The only thing I can think of in this case, is that the signature might have been copied from Gimmio using Safari as the browser? Safari doesn’t copy HTML tables correctly, so we always recommend using Chrome when using Gimmio (especially when copying signatures). Hope this helps.
Got the same problem :(, anyone could help with that issue?