Here’s a neat little tip I discovered myself today.
Gmail recently announced the availability of canned responses as a Gmail Labs feature. Canned Responses allow you to use ready made replies to emails which you receive regularly, particularly useful for customer service or sales.
Interesting enough though, Canned Responses also work perfectly (no hacking required) for multiple email signatures.
How does it work?
- Enable Canned Responses in “Labs” in your gmail account.
- Write out your email signature into your email as if you were writing a normal email.
- Next save the signature as a canned response under any name, something like “My Main Signature” for example. (repeat this step for all your various signatures)
- From now on, you can write emails as your normally would and once you’ve reached the foot of your email and ready to insert your signature – simply click the “Canned Responses” menu and select the appropriate signature.
The downside? You unfortunately can’t insert HTML signatures.
Nice one.
Fortunately you can insert a HTML canned response. It requires some hacking though. Enable Firebug for GMail (not recommended to have it enabled normally), and paste the HTML in the message Div. Then save the message as a canned response.
Great! I’m looking for a long time already, the solution for this. Thanks!
Gmail is by far my favorite application on my webtop! I use it constantly, from any location. Although I’m not a fan of canned responses, I like that this allows flexibility in choosing accounts and allows a user to create a draft/template message and then add in personal information as needed.
I’m using the Blank Canvas GMail signatures FF extension which allows HTML text. But this is a great hint for use with Safari or Chrome.
This is a great little app, but not cross browser friendly.
Bryan
Or use a firefox addon:
http://blankcanvasweb.com/pages/id_9/n_gmail_signatures/
I know this article is to show it without any external application or script, but this gives a better experience in my opinion.
Hi – have been using canned responses (customised of course) for a while but didn’t twig that would work for multiple signatures. God bless you.
Nice I tried many email signature solutions including “canned responses” and the problem with it was that it overrides all previous texts and it dose not insert automatically when you compose…after many searches for the ultimate email signature solution i decided to use WiseStamp and i highly recommend it for Firefox users check it out-
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8206
I’m a big fan of WiseStamp FF plugin, check it out at: http://wisestamp.com
For some reason, when I hit insert Canned Response, it inserts it before all of the text that I have written. Its basically making me insert the “signature” first, then begin my message. Otherwise I have to move the signature after my message if I write the message first.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Zee,
This is exactly what I was looking for! I have been using “Blank Canvas” for Firefox, but could not seem to find anything for Safari.
Now I will just use this for all browsers.
Thanks again for the tip!
Regards,
Bryan
Great, it now works with HTML !!!
Did you manage to get it working with html and images included?
I could not manage the html signatures. I installed firebug. Cannot find the message div. Could you please explain / show us which part to copy in the canned response?
thanks bro, this works like a dream
Thank you for the trick, I was looking for it.
Best,
İsmail
Nice little tip. Thanks!
Sorry I’m a little late to this party, but being a recent convert to Safari now that it has a HTML debugger almost as good as Firebug, HTML email sigs in Gmail was the only thing stopping me from making Safari my main browser.
Anyway for those of you already using the Blank Canvas email signatures, all I had to do was to create a new email message in Firefox with my signature already applied by Blank Canvas, and save it as a new canned response. No firebug needed.
If you’re not using Blank Canvas already then one method which should work (though I haven’t tried it yet) is to create your HTML signature as an html page, open it in Safari, select the contents in the browser, copy it, and paste it into a new Gmail message.
Very well thought!
I hate extensions and configurations as my computer burns from time to time.
i use an email with the signature made with wisestamp earlier when on firefox, forward that msg and try to save it. but when i write a new msg the images are empty. what did i do wrong?
HTML signatures are actually easier than some of these hacks.
Basically, you need someone to email you the signature (from an HTML friendly mail client), click “Forward”, remove the header info, and voila, you can save as a canned response, and it works like a charm (at least with the multiple images I used.
Zee man, you nailed it dude!!
Just a thank you :-)
Automatically gmail allows ONE sign.. I use it for legal privacy statements and then add the company sign :-)
A great thing would be to correlate the Mail From (smtp auth rocks) with a specific signature.
GG
Brilliant, thanks
great tip! thank you!
Great, It´s working smooth from Gmail. Thanks Zee.
Great article, thanks for sharing! Wish goog would finally enable things like canned responses on by default..
I used to add my signature manual into emails sending from Gmail.
I hope in the future Gmail supports such as Multiple Signature with HTML built in. It could be a logical feature, because Gmail supports already multiple accounts.
But anyways thanks, very good tutorial.
hi, i tried doing this but when i try to insert the signature, it also inserts the whole email beforehand? help please? thanks
The blog was absolutely fantastic! I am very much pleased with the contents you have mentioned.I wanted to thank you for this great article.I enjoyed every little bit part of it and I will be waiting for the new updates.
custom labels and stickers
I use GMail the most and I find these scripts a life saver! I am listing them here so it will be a helpful reference for me and hopefully as well. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post. Alaska Pets
The info is very open and very clear explanation of issues. It contains truly information. Your website is very useful. Thanks for sharing.
dating girl Lahore
awww, thank you :)
Strange, it doesn’t override all the previous text in my gmail. I’ve heard that it used to do that, but in my case – it definitely doesn’t. I like WiseStamp too but I’m now a Safari user so it’s not an option.
You have to write your message first and insert your signature at the end.
Bryan
Exactly Bas, that is how it’s done. Then experience the speed of Safari. Woo Hoo! I love how Gmail is shaping up.