Illustration: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

People place all sorts of images in electronic mail signatures. In organizations, the inserted image is typically a logo, an advertising or a promotional paradigm. Sometimes it's a photo or stylized image of the sender. Images in personal e-mail signatures often signal something nearly the person or the person's interests.

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If you use Gmail, yous may upload an prototype or insert an paradigm from the web or Google Drive into your signature. And if you use Gmail as office of Google Workspace, an administrator can configure a signature—including an image—that appends to all outgoing email, equally well. Merely any epitome an administrator includes must be available at a public web link, so the steps below draw how to get your paradigm onto a Google Site in social club to obtain a public link.

But before you add together any paradigm into your signature, let me add together a note of caution. In full general, I recommend people keep email signatures text-only. Text is much more accessible to people with low or no vision than an image in a signature. Besides, text uses far less bandwidth than an image. (Make sure to resize and/or compress your prototype to advisable dimensions and quality.) That said, in that location are many times when an image in a Gmail signature may exist merited.

How to add an epitome in a personal Gmail business relationship signature

To add, edit or manage signatures in a personal Gmail business relationship:

  1. Become to Gmail in a desktop-class web browser.
  2. If needed, sign in to your Gmail account.
  3. In the upper correct surface area, select the Sprocket (settings) | Meet All Settings | Full general (from the menu options listed beyond the tiptop).
  4. Scroll downwardly to the Signature section.
  5. Either choose the "+ Create New" push or select an existing signature.
  6. In the signature area to the right, enter and format whatsoever text or links you lot want in your signature.
  7. Select the Insert image option (Effigy A), then navigate to the epitome y'all want.
  8. When finished, scroll to the lesser of the page and select the Save Changes button.

Figure A

In Gmail Settings, select the image icon, so upload or insert an image from the web or Google Drive.

Google Workspace admins: How to add together an epitome in an appended Gmail footer

A Google Workspace administrator may manage email footers that append to every outbound email for an arrangement. In the Admin console, the important settings are at App | Google Workspace | Gmail | Compliance, select an organization (or organizational unit) from the left (if needed), and so scroll to Append Footer and cull Configure (Figure B). To learn how outbound footers work in Google Workspace, read my article, How to fix a Gmail signature for your arrangement.

Figure B

A Google Workspace administrator may choose to append a footer to outbound email for an organisation. Any image inserted into this appended footer must be available on the web with a public link. Still, images stored on Google Drive, even if publicly shared, volition non work.

But if you try to insert an image stored on Google Bulldoze into an outbound footer, it won't work. You may only add together an image with a public link into admin-managed appended footers (Figure B). A publicly shared epitome stored on Google Drive won't work.

I suggest y'all create and maintain a Google Site where you lot add images, since any image stored on a Google Site folio may be used in outbound footers—as long as the Site is published and public. Those last two criteria are important: The image insertion into the footer won't work on sites that aren't public or aren't published yet.

To create a new Google Site defended to your outbound images, you might:

  1. Type site.new in a desktop-class browser.
  2. Edit the title for your site (e.1000., Promotional Footer Images).
  3. Then select Insert | Images to either Upload or Select images to your site (Figure C). Alternatively, y'all might select Insert | Drive and and so choose images stored on Google Drive to add to your Site.

    4. Figure C

    As you edit a Google Site, with the Insert tab active, select Images. Y'all may and so choose either to Upload or Select an prototype.
  4. Select Publish, then edit the web address for your site (e.g., Footers).
  5. Under Who Can View My Site, select Manage. Then, under Links, select Change.
  6. Next to the Published site option, select the drop-downwards and choose Public (Figure D), then select Done.

    7. Effigy D

    Modify your Site settings to make your published site Public.
  7. Select Washed once again. The box should now display Anyone under Who Can View My Site. Select Publish.
  8. Next, select the drop-down to the right of Publish, then choose View Published Site (Figure E). This should open up the site in a new browser tab. Switch to that tab.

    9. Figure East

    Once public and published, select the drib-downward options next to the Publish menu and cull View published site.
  9. On your site, correct-click on the paradigm you lot want to insert into your outbound footer, then select Copy Image Address (Figure F).

Figure F

While viewing the published site, right-click (or Ctrl-click) on an epitome, and so select Re-create Prototype Address from the displayed menu.

You lot at present have the public link you lot need to paste into the prompt afterward yous select the prototype icon in the Suspend Footer section of the Admin console. As an editor of the site, yous tin always return to the site and copy the link to the published folio. Share the link with others, and they'll be able to access the page.

Optionally, you lot can have steps to make the footer page a bit less easy to detect. To do this, make sure you have at least two pages on your Google Site, and that your images are not on the Dwelling page of the site. And so, while editing your Site, select Pages, then click on the three vertical dots to the correct of your Footer page proper noun. Cull Hide from navigation (Figure G), which volition remove the folio from Google Site navigation menus. Since the page is omitted from the menu construction, it won't exist available for a casual site visitor to access.

Effigy Thousand

You might make your footer epitome folio more difficult to observe with the Hide From Navigation choice.

How do you utilise images in Gmail signatures?

Exercise y'all include standard data, such equally contact or company information, in your signatures? Or practice you personalize your signature with favorite images, phrases or quotes? Or do you "go minimalist" and omit the utilise of signatures entirely? Permit me know how you use—or don't use—images in Gmail signatures, either with a annotate below or on Twitter (@awolber).