What is the Best Email Signature Size?

    1.Why does email signature size matter?
    2.What are the most common mistakes in email signature design?
    3.Using the right email signature size
    4.How to reduce your email signature size
    5.Using signature generator

Perhaps you have spent hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars and many hours developing your company's brand design. Usually, it consists of several small components: brand name, color palette, graphic arts, typography, logo, and others. But have you ever wondered how many people can actually see it and how to easily increase this number?

Adding an email signature design to your brand elements will increase recognition and the company's popularity. However, it shouldn't just be a good signature but the one that puts your best business face forward and provides the highest return on investment. 

A quality signature isn't just about visual appeal and relevance to your company's needs; it's also about size.

Create a Professional Email Signature with Perfect Size

Why does email signature size matter?

The size of email signatures is crucial and can significantly impact your email experience. This is a subject you might not have thought about a lot. But if you are willing to have the best signature, you should also consider its size.

Smaller signatures offer several advantages:

1. Reduced mailbox storage. Large signatures contribute to bloated mailbox databases. This can create problems during server migrations or data backups. Keeping your signature concise helps you avoid these headaches down the line.
2. Faster loading times. Smaller signatures contribute to quicker email loading times for your recipients, ensuring that your messages are easily accessible and opened promptly.
3. Consideration for recipients. Smaller signatures also benefit your recipients by saving storage space in their inboxes. This is especially important for users with limited storage quotas.

source: mailtrap

So, what size should your signature be?

Before giving a precise answer, let’s look at different factors and parameters that impact the size of an email signature.

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Source: <a href="https://newoldstamp.com/blog/what-size-should-image-be-for-the-email-signature/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Email Signature Size Guide</a> by <a href="https://newoldstamp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Newoldstamp</a>

What are the most common mistakes in email signature design?

1.  Forget to optimize the email signature size for mobile devices. Most companies build only one resolution for desktops but do not adapt it for smartphones and tablets. It significantly reduces the target audience, as the smartphone is considered the most used device in the world now.

2. Have more than two large images. Do not add more than two large-size images in a good signature because some users with mobile internet will not be able to download this file at all. Also, 3-4 pictures in your large email signature may look too intrusive. 
3. Add an image that doesn't connect the context. Any images in the email should be brand-styled and make sense. If you add banner images, they should have a hyperlink to the external website. 
4. Use animations. Animations are always fresh and exciting. But as a rule, they don’t work in email signature marketing. Also, some email clients turn GIF animations into still images.  For example, you have an animation of your cat's head moving, and your recipients will see just a static blurry image. It’s not the best start, right?
5. Use the one small image as the full signature. It is not enough. Just your photo or logo without text can automatically send your letter to the spam folder. The text is always essential to the recipient. In addition to the images in email signatures, you must have a texted "Call to Action" technique.

6. Don't attach images in an email at all. Pictures are vital for brand promotion; not adding a graphic always means losing potential customers. A beautiful photograph or picture attracts attention = trades high.
7. Design the wrong email signature image size. In this case, the size of the email signature matters! The picture shouldn't be too small or too large. In other words, the email signature image size should be IDEAL to attract every potential buyer. 

*All signatures will be converted to HTML. Therefore, you must use only "web-safe" fonts in the design. 

Using the right email signature size

Email signature weight

These days, people send and receive a lot of business emails daily. Imagine that every email contains a signature that gives it extra weight. Opening a very big email might cause some trouble. Many companies set up size limits on incoming emails. An email containing a big image might not even be delivered.

Considering everything mentioned, ensure your signature weighs no more than 50 kB. Ideally, its weight should be around 25KB. The smaller it is, the better.

• Image compression

Compressing your email signature image helps it weigh less in kilobytes (kb) without sacrificing visual quality. This is crucial for maintaining a fast-loading email signature. Many free and paid online image compression tools are available, such as TinyPNG.

After all, you should ensure your emails open quickly and effortlessly. No one wants to spend extra time waiting for the email to be opened.

Email signature dimensions

It is important to pay attention not only to the signature weight but also to the email signature dimensions.

You would want people to send clean emails without any crops. Often, when the edges are cut out, the emails might have the reverse effect. Instead of having an appealing look, they look unattractive. So, this is quite a reason to consider the dimensions before sending such emails.

• Mobile email signature size

While email content appears in landscape on desktops, smartphones primarily use a portrait layout. So, if you want recipients to be able to read your emails on mobile devices, you should consider the size of the mobile screen devices. They are usually between 320 and 500px wide. Thus, keeping the width of a signature at around 320px is preferable.

Use a font size between 11 and 26 pixels for your mobile email signature. This avoids distracting from the email's content while keeping it legible.

• Desktop email signature size

The industry standard for desktop email signature images is around 650 pixels wide. However, for a cleaner design and to avoid cropping issues, we recommend a slightly smaller size of 600 pixels wide and 150-200 pixels high. This size works well across popular email clients like Outlook and Gmail and accommodates most viewing preferences.

Email signature logo size

Including a logo or photo in your signature has become common practice, and for good reason. These elements enhance brand recognition and personalization.

While specific logo sizes can vary, a general rule of thumb is to keep them around 100 pixels by 100 pixels. This size ensures your logo remains visible and recognizable within most signatures.

Email signature banner size

The primary purpose of the banner is to help your email to advertise your company to new customers. That's why all your graphics should be unique, colorful, and brand-styled. As we have already mentioned: "Size matters!" 

• The whole email signature dimension (or email signature size in pixels) should be no more than 800 pixels in width and between 90 and 150 pixels in height, with a maximum quality resolution of 100 dpi.
• The best signature size in pixels should be around 300-400 pixels in width and 70–100 pixels in height (approximately 72 dpi).
• The email signature picture used as an email banner has a maximum width of 700 pixels and a maximum height of 100 pixels.
• The ideal Gmail signature size would be smaller: about 80 pixels in height and up to 200 pixels wide. 
• The file size of the email signature shouldn’t exceed 15kb (when optimized for the web).

Email signature social media icon size

Keep social media icon size relatively small, around 22 pixels by 22 pixels. This ensures they are visible without dominating the signature or competing with other elements like your logo or contact information.

Email signature image shape

It is difficult to give a definite answer since each image has its own ideal shape. So, let's look at all kinds of images that can be added to email signature templates and their possible forms.

    1. Personal photo. It is probably one of the most familiar images in any signature. This technique creates trust        because when we see a high-quality person's photo, it becomes much more pleasant to communicate. For a personal photo, it is better to use a typical signature form: circle or square, which is simple but familiar and understandable to      everyone.

    2. Logo—the shape of your logo. Company logos come in all sorts of different forms. So, you do not need to invent anything extra; just leave your logo as it is.

    3. Banner. For any type of banner, it is best to use a similar shape to a rectangle. But it can also be any oblong form, for example, an oval, ellipse, diamond, or something more unusual, like a ribbon or even an infinity sign.

    4. Background image. According to the template, it should be rectangular and usually white. Although you can play with color, we advise using the same form.

     5. Other images. The standard shapes are a circle, square, rectangle, sometimes a triangle, a pentagon, and a hexagon. You can design whatever you want, all in your hands. But don't overdo it; your signature should stay elegant and clear.

Character limit of your email client

Also, be aware that several email platforms have character limits in their email signature settings. So, you have to take it into account when sending emails with signatures.

Now, let’s have a closer look at each email client you might be using while sending signature emails:

• Gmail

Gmail has set a limit of up to 10,000 characters, which is pretty good. Such a character limit wouldn’t interfere much with your idea and creativity to send the best email signature you can think of.

• Outlook

If you use Outlook.com, you should be more careful about the size of an email signature. This email client has an approximately 5,120-character limit, so consider it before sending emails.

• AOL

The character limit in AOL mail is the shortest of all email clients. This means that you won’t be able to send fancy-designed signature templates using this client.

• Yahoo

All the email signatures sent via Yahoo should contain less than 10,000 characters, so you must reduce them to match that size.

How to reduce your email signature size 

Understanding the importance of a concise email signature size is key. Here's how to achieve a smaller signature:

• Focus on essential information. Only include critical details like your name, title, contact information, and company website. Avoid cluttering your signature with unnecessary elements.
• Compress large profile photos. It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce email signature size. Photoshop is the most popular program for this purpose. Through it, you can make the large image much smaller (kb) without losing quality. It's called lossless compression. Thus, you can reduce a picture from 60 kb to 10 kb or even less, and it will look almost the same.

• Do not use the banner if you do not have to. A large signature always has a banner that spans the bottom of your signature to give your recipients extra information. It is a great way to advertise a company's brand or promote any product. However, they always take up a lot of room in the signature and usually have a large email footer size. Therefore, use marketing banners only when necessary. 
• Add a small image. Another great option is to use lower-resolution images in email signatures. Smaller pictures look way better because they still give information and look more elegant. Also, the larger the image, the longer it will load for your letter recipients. So, these advantages are distinct. But even when you use smaller-resolution images, you still should compress them.

• Use only JPEG or PNG images. Only two main types of pictures should be used in a good signature. PNG is always the best type for brand logos and pictures with transparent backgrounds. It is better to use JPEG for personal photos because you need to show more color and details. The GIF type will 95% have a larger size than acceptable. If you have an image file in another format, you can use the best free image converter to save it in JPEG or PNG file formats.

Tip: Reserve elaborate signatures for external communication. When emailing colleagues, a simpler signature with basic contact information might suffice.

Using an email signature generator

So, you can use our size recommendation and reduce your email signatures if needed.

But it all takes time and effort. If you prefer to allocate this time to developing your business, you can use a signature editor like Newoldstamp to manage your signature design, size, dimensions, and other limitations.

Besides, it’s a cost-effective way to create the best email signature that will appear correctly on all devices. 

With Newoldstamp, you can create email signatures in HTML format for your company’s needs.

You could also try it for free (with our 7-day free trial) and install HTML email signatures (no worries, you don’t need to know coding to do that) using email signature templates.

Make your emails stand out and ensure they are read and displayed correctly on all devices.

Conclusion 

Based on our findings on the best size for email signatures, we can confidently say that a larger signature image size is not the best option. There is no need to design a signature file more than 20-15 kb. 

A large image with little text can easily ensure that your letter migrates from the inbox to the spam folder. A smaller image will look advantageous and intriguingly draw the recipient's attention.

Before creating your brand-new signature through a template, be sure to compress the image. There is even a theory that file compression can help the global environment. It is hard to say how true this is, but it will 100% improve your business marketing company. At the very least, your recipients will download the email faster and get the right picture with the right resolution.