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Create organization-wide signatures and disclaimers

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  • 2 minutes to read

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You can manage email signatures by adding an email signature, legal disclaimer, or disclosure statement to the email messages that enter or leave your organization. You can set it up to apply to all incoming and outgoing messages as shown below. Or you can apply it to certain messages like those containing specific words or text patterns.

Watch: Create a company-wide email signature

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  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Exchange.
  2. Select Mail flow.
  3. Select Add +, and then select Apply disclaimers.
  4. On the New rule page, complete the steps.

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Create a signature that applies to all messages

Tip

Organization-wide signatures are called "disclaimers," regardless of what they include. For example, they can just be a signature, or also include your address, legal disclaimer, or other information you want.

Go to the admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com.

  1. Select the app launcher The app launcher icon., and then select Admin.

    Can't find the app you're looking for? From the app launcher, select All apps to see an alphabetical list of the apps available to you. From there, you can search for a specific app.

  2. Select Admin centers, and then choose Exchange.

  3. Under Mail flow, select Rules.

  4. Select the + (Add) icon and choose Apply disclaimers.

  5. Give the rule a name.

  6. Under Apply this rule, select [Apply to all messages].

    Tip

    Learn more about applying conditions if you don't want the disclaimer applied to all messages. (This scoping article is for Exchange Server, but it also applies to Microsoft 365.)

  7. Under Do the following, leave Append the disclaimer selected.

  8. Select Enter text and type your disclaimer.

    Tip

    Learn more about formatting disclaimers. (This formatting article is for Exchange Server, but it also applies to Microsoft 365.)

  9. Select Select one and choose Wrap as a fallback option. Then OK. This means that if the disclaimer can't be added because of encryption or another mail setting, it will be wrapped in a message envelope.

  10. Leave Audit this rule with severity level selected. Then choose Low, Medium, or High to be used in the message log.

  11. Choose Enforce to turn on the disclaimer immediately, unless you want to test it first.

  12. Choose More options to include additional conditions or exceptions.

  13. Choose Save when finished.

Limitations of organization wide signatures

You can't do the following when managing email signatures in Microsoft 365:

  • Insert the signature directly under the latest email reply or forward

  • Display server-side email signatures in users' Sent Items folders

  • Embed images in email signatures

  • Skip lines which contain variables that couldn't be updated (e.g. because the value wasn't provided for a user)

To gain these and other capabilities to manage email signatures, use a third-party tool. Please do an internet search for email signature software. A number of these providers are Microsoft Gold Partners and their software provides these capabilities.

More resources

For information about using PowerShell, see Organization-wide message disclaimers, signatures, footers, or headers in Exchange Online.

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