How to remove email signatures added by mobile devices

Problem:

When people in your organization use mobile devices to send emails, their devices add default email signatures (such as the Sent from my phone text line) or other native mobile email signatures that get mixed with signatures added by CodeTwo software. You would like to remove these mobile signatures to keep your company's signatures clean and tidy.

Solution:

There are essentially 3 methods that let you remove default/native mobile email signatures:

• Use CodeTwo Web Add-in for Outlook (works with Outlook for iOS and Android)
• Use the Keywords feature in CodeTwo software (works with all email apps)
• Use Intune – the MDM solution from Microsoft (works with Outlook for iOS and Android)

Use CodeTwo Outlook Web Add-in to remove native mobile email signatures in Outlook mobile apps

When CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 works in Outlook (client-side) mode, it uses our Web Add-in to automatically add CodeTwo signatures to email as users type them in Outlook (including Outlook for iOS & Android). The Web Add-in also removes native email signatures set up in Outlook apps.

However, the Web Add-in can also be used with Outlook mobile apps in cloud (server-side) mode – it won’t add any CodeTwo signatures, but will still remove the native signatures. Here’s how to set it up:

1. Deploy the Web Add-in for the users who experience the problem with mixed signatures in Outlook mobile. Follow these deployment steps (note that the deployment can take up to 72 hours to complete, depending on the size of your organization).
2. Sign in to CodeTwo Admin Panel, click your tenant on the Tenants page, choose Outlook add-in from the menu, and make sure the following settings are enabled:
   • Add CodeTwo signatures also in Outlook for iOS and Android
   • Always disable end users’ default signatures in Outlook (under advanced settings)

     as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. The add-in settings required to remove native mobile email signatures.

3. Wait up to 4 hours for the changes to take effect.

From now on, users on mobile Outlooks will always get their CodeTwo email signature only, avoiding the problem of doubled or mixed email signatures.

Use keywords to remove native mobile email signatures

With CodeTwo software, you can create a signature rule that is triggered by specific phrases (keywords) and removes these phrases from the message body. To get rid of mobile signatures, you need to create such a rule, define keywords that match the most common phrases used as mobile signatures, and set this rule to be applied prior to any other email rules in your organization.

Be advised that this method will work only if the entire phrase you want to remove is formatted in one style, e.g. the phrase is a plain text, a link or is bolded, underlined, or italicized in whole.

The method will not work if different styles are used within the text you want to remove. A phrase will not be removed if some part of it is a link, is bolded, underlined, italicized, etc. 

For example:

• This phrase will be removed.
• This phrase will be removed as well.
• This phrase will not be removed.
• This phrase will not be removed as well.

Use the links below to get guidelines for:

• CodeTwo Email Signatures 365
• CodeTwo Exchange Rules (Pro)

CodeTwo Email Signatures 365

This solution works for users who get CodeTwo signatures in the cloud (server-side), regardless of which mobile email app they use to send emails.

1. Open the signature management app (app.codetwo.com) and sign in. Add a new signature rule via the CREATE RULE button and name it (e.g. Remove mobile signature).
2. Move on to the Senders step and define users for whom this signature rule should be triggered. You can select all users or, if preferred, narrow down the scope of senders to people who use mobile devices. Learn more about the Senders condition in this article.
3. Next, go to the Recipients step and click Add to select Internal recipients, External recipients or All recipients. This way you specify whether this signature rule should be applied to messages sent inside and/or outside your organization. You can also choose a group of recipients inside your organization by clicking Group members.
4. In the Keywords step, add a new keyword phrase and type exactly the same phrase that appears in email signatures added by mobile devices used in your organization. Set the program to search for the phrase only in the email body and to remove this phrase from the message (Fig. 3.). If it's not possible to cover all mobile signature patterns with a single keyword phrase, add a separate keyword phrase for every type of mobile signature.

Fig. 3. Add a keyword phrase for each signature text pattern used by mobile devices in your company.

5. In the Logic step, set the program to always process next rules, as shown in Fig. 4. With this setting in place, after a mobile signature is removed from a message, your organization's email signature(s) will be added to this message in the usual way.

Fig. 4. The new rule needs to allow the subsequent rules to be processed.

6. In the Design step, click Save & Publish to apply the rule in your organization.

7. Finally, use the Move up button in the signature management app's main window to move the rule up your rules' list so that this rule is executed as the first signature rule (Fig. 5.). This step is very important because the newly created rule should process emails before other signature rules are applied.

Fig. 5. The newly created rule has to be executed as the first one.

From now on, default/native mobile signatures are removed from emails sent by people in your organization. Note that this rule might not work in every case, as some users might change the default email signatures on their mobile devices.

CodeTwo Exchange Rules (Pro)

The guidelines described in this section apply to all current programs from the CodeTwo Exchange Rules family. To use the software to remove email signatures added by mobile devices in your organization, you need to:

1. Open the Administration Panel of your CodeTwo program. Add a new signature rule by clicking the + Add button and choosing New rule. Name the rule (e.g. Remove mobile signatures).
2. Use the arrow up () button to move the rule to the top of your rules' list so that it's is executed before any other signature rules are applied (Fig. 6.).

Fig. 6. The newly created email rule has to be executed as the first one.

3. Move on to the Conditions tab and create a condition defining users for whom this signature rule should be triggered. You can select all users in your organization (Sender > is > internal) or, if preferred, narrow down the scope of senders to people who use mobile devices.
4. Now add a second condition: Body > contains keywords and click Edit to open the keywords configuration window. Add a new keyword phrase and type exactly the same phrase that appears in email signatures added by mobile devices used in your organization (note that phrases are case insensitive). Set the program to remove this phrase from the email (Fig. 7.). If it's not possible to cover all mobile signature patterns with a single keyword phrase, add a separate phrase for every type of mobile signature.

Fig. 7. You need to add a keyword phrase for each signature text pattern used by mobile devices in your company.

5. Skip the Exceptions and Actions tabs and move directly to the Options tab (the rule should only remove mobile signatures, without performing any other actions).
6. On the Options tab, set the program to always process next rules, as shown in Fig. 8. With this setting enabled, after a mobile signature is removed from an email, the other email rules defined in your organization (such as signature rules) will be applied to this email in the usual way.

Fig. 8. The new rule needs to allow the subsequent rules to be processed.

7. Click the Submit changes () button to save your configuration.

From now on, default/native mobile signatures are removed from emails sent by people in your organization. Note that this rule might not work in every case, as some users might change the default email signatures on their mobile devices.

See also:

• How to disable the native signature experience in Outlook for Windows with Microsoft Intune 
• How to disable the native signature experience in Outlook for Mac using Microsoft Intune