Edit

Create organization-wide signatures and disclaimers

  • Article

Check out all of our small business content on Small business help & learning.

Check out Microsoft 365 small business help on YouTube.

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.

Create a signature that applies to all messages

Check out this video and others on our YouTube channel.

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

If you found this video helpful, check out the complete training series for small businesses and those new to Microsoft 365.

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.

  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].

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

  8. Select Enter text, type your disclaimer, and then select Save.

  9. Select Select one, choose Wrap as a fallback option, and then select Save. 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. Under Except if, choose whether you want exceptions for sender, recipient, attachment and more and follow those steps.

  11. Choose Next.

  12. Under Rule mode, choose Enforce to turn on the disclaimer immediately, otherwise, choose Test with Policy Tips or Test without Policy Tips.

  13. Choose a Severity level.

  14. Choose Activate this rule on and specify a date.

  15. Choose Deactivate this rule on and specify a date.

  16. Choose Stop processing more rules if you only want this signature rule to run.

  17. Choose Defer the message if rule processing doesn’t complete if you want this experience.

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.

Related content

Migrate email and contacts to Microsoft 365 (video)
User email settings (article)
[Overview of the Microsoft 365 admin center](Overview of the Microsoft 365 admin center](../admin-overview/admin-center-overview.md) (video)