Dynamic Outlook signatures based on senders/recipients

Find out how to set up CodeTwo email signatures that will change automatically based on the sender and recipients (From and To fields) you select when composing an email in Outlook. For example, the signature will auto-update when you:

• select a shared mailbox or alias address in the email’s "From” field,
• add different recipients (e.g. internal or external) to the "To" or "Cc" fields (see Fig. 1.).

Fig. 1. The CodeTwo Outlook signature automatically updates as you change the recipients.

See the video below or continue reading to learn how to set up dynamic Outlook signatures. 

• Set up dynamic Outlook signatures based on senders (selected in the From field)
• Set up dynamic Outlook signatures based on recipients (selected in the To and Cc fields)

Set up dynamic Outlook signatures based on senders

By default, you will always get your own email signature, even if you change the From field and send an email as / on behalf of another user or shared mailbox, or from an alias address.

However, you can also configure the CodeTwo Outlook Add-in to match the signature with the From email address. To enable this, you need to turn on the feature called Change CodeTwo Outlook signatures to match the email address in the From field, as described here.

Enabling this feature also displays the If sending from alternative “From” address option in the add-in pane, allowing you to decide which signature should be added by default whenever you change the sender (as shown in Fig. 2.) – either the signature set up for the user/mailbox selected in the From field or your personal signature. See this article to learn more about this option

Fig. 2. Choosing which signature to use when sending an email from an alternative From address.

No matter if the add-in updates the signature automatically or keeps the original sender's signature when you change the From field, you can always insert another signature manually (if available) from the add-in pane, as shown in Fig. 3. 

Fig. 3. Inserting an email signature manually from the add-in pane.

Use the links below to learn how to set up different Outlook signatures for:

• different senders/departments
• shared/group mailboxes
• alias addresses

Looking for more setup guides? See the full list here

Set up dynamic Outlook signatures based on recipients

Sign in to the Signatures app and open any Outlook (client-side) signature rule for editing (or create a new one).

Go to the Recipients step. Use the Add buttons to define conditions (the top list) or exceptions (the bottom list) to your signature rule. Use the available conditions (see Fig. 4.) to decide if this rule should apply (and add an email signature) to:

• all email recipients (the rule will be triggered by emails sent to any email address),
• internal recipients only (the rule will be triggered only if all recipients are internal – will not be triggered if at least one recipient is external),
• external recipients (the rule will be triggered if at least one recipient is external),
• members of specific groups in your organization,
• specific people (email addresses).

To better understand how different recipient-based conditions affect the signature inserted by the add-in, see these examples.

Fig. 4. Setting up recipient-based conditions for a CodeTwo Outlook (client-side) rule.

To make sure your signature is added automatically when changing email senders and recipients while composing an email, set the rule as default for new messages and/or replies and forwards in the Logic step, as shown in Fig. 5. If you have multiple CodeTwo Outlook (client-side) signature rules that are set as default, the add-in will automatically insert the signature from the first rule whose conditions are met (the rules are processed from top to bottom in CodeTwo's Signatures app). Signatures from other rules whose conditions are met but were not added automatically will be available in the add-in pane in Outlook desktop and OWA.

Fig. 5. Select these options if you want this signature to be added automatically to emails in Outlook.

When you publish or update an Outlook signature rule, end users will see your changes within up to 15 minutes. But they can also easily force a manual update at any time. Learn more

That’s it. The CodeTwo Outlook Add-in will now automatically change the signature as you add or remove email addresses in the To / Cc field. This works similarly across all Outlook apps (desktop, web and mobile), as shown in Fig. 6. and Fig. 7.

Fig. 6. Dynamic CodeTwo signatures in Outlook desktop.

Fig. 7. Dynamic CodeTwo signatures in Outlook mobile.

In Outlook desktop and OWA, you can open the add-in pane to view all signatures that are available for you (the list is updated dynamically as you change email recipients, subject and content, based on your organization’s signature rule settings). Simply click the signature you want to insert to replace the automatic signature.

Learn more about setting up Outlook signature rules