How to add default signature in Outlook

Question

I am writing a VBA script in Access that creates and auto-populates a few dozen emails   It s been smooth coding so far  but I m new to Outlook   After creating the mailitem object  how do I add the default signature to the email    This would be the default signature that is automatically added when creating a new email  Ideally  I d like to just use ObjMail GetDefaultSignature  but I can t find anything like it  Currently  I m using the function below  found elsewhere on the internet  and referencing the exact path  amp  filename of the htm file   But this will be used by several people and they may have a different name for their default htm signature file   So this works  but it s not ideal   Function GetBoiler ByVal sFile As String  As String  Dick Kusleika Dim fso As Object Dim ts As Object Set fso   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   Set ts   fso GetFile sFile  OpenAsTextStream 1  -2  GetBoiler   ts readall ts Close End Function    Called with getboiler SigString    C  Users    amp  Environ  username    amp    AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures Mysig txt      Edit  Thanks to JP  see comments   I realize that the default signature is showing up at first  but it disappears when I use HTMLBody to add a table to the email   So I guess my question is now  How do I display the default signature and still display an html table   Sub X       Dim OlApp As Outlook Application     Dim ObjMail As Outlook MailItem      Set OlApp   Outlook Application     Set ObjMail   OlApp CreateItem olMailItem       ObjMail BodyFormat   olFormatHTML     ObjMail Subject    Subject goes here      ObjMail Recipients Add  Email goes here       ObjMail HTMLBody   ObjMail Body  amp   HTML Table goes here      ObjMail Display  End Sub

User · Answer

Outlook adds the signature to the new unmodified messages (you should not modify the body prior to that) when you call MailItem.Display (which causes the message to be displayed on the screen) or when you access the MailItem.GetInspector property - you do not have to do anything with the returned Inspector object, but Outlook will populate the message body with the signature.

Once the signature is added, read the HTMLBody property and merge it with the HTML string that you are trying to set. Note that you cannot simply concatenate 2 HTML strings - the strings need to be merged. E.g. if you want to insert your string at the top of the HTML body, look for the "<body" substring, then find the next occurrence of ">" (this takes care of the <body> element with attributes), then insert your HTML string after that ">".

Outlook Object Model does not expose signatures at all.

On a general note, the name of the signature is stored in the account profile data accessible through the IOlkAccountManager Extended MAPI interface. Since that interface is Extended MAPI, it can only be accessed using C++ or Delphi. You can see the interface and its data in OutlookSpy if you click the IOlkAccountManager button.
Once you have the signature name, you can read the HTML file from the file system (keep in mind that the folder name (Signatures in English) is localized.
Also keep in mind that if the signature contains images, they must also be added to the message as attachments and the <img> tags in the signature/message body adjusted to point the src attribute to the attachments rather than a subfolder of the Signatures folder where the images are stored.
It will also be your responsibility to merge the HTML styles from the signature HTML file with the styles of the message itself.

If using Redemption is an option, you can use its RDOAccount object (accessible in any language, including VBA). New message signature name is stored in the 0x0016001F property, reply signature is in 0x0017001F. You can also use the RDOAccount.ReplySignature and NewSignature properties.
Redemption also exposes RDOSignature.ApplyTo method that takes a pointer to the RDOMail object and inserts the signature at the specified location correctly merging the images and the styles:

set Session = CreateObject("Redemption.RDOSession")
Session.MAPIOBJECT = Application.Session.MAPIOBJECT
set Drafts = Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderDrafts)
set   Msg = Drafts.Items.Add
Msg.To =   "[email protected]"
Msg.Subject  = "testing signatures"
Msg.HTMLBody = "<html><body>some <b>bold</b> message text</body></html>"
set Account = Session.Accounts.GetOrder(2).Item(1)   'first mail account
if  Not (Account  Is  Nothing)  Then
     set Signature = Account.NewMessageSignature
     if  Not (Signature  Is  Nothing)  Then
       Signature.ApplyTo Msg,  false   'apply at the bottom
     End If
End If
Msg.Send

EDIT: as of July 2017, MailItem.GetInspector in Outlook 2016 no longer inserts the signature. Only MailItem.Display does.

User · Answer

Need to add a reference to Microsoft Outlook  it is in Project references  from the visual basic window top menu   Private Sub sendemail Click      Dim OutlookApp As Outlook Application   Dim OutlookMail As Outlook MailItem    Set OutlookApp   New Outlook Application   Set OutlookMail   OutlookApp CreateItem olMailItem     With OutlookMail      Display      To   email      Subject    subject       Dim wdDoc As Object       Word Document     Dim wdRange As Object     Word Range     Set wdDoc    GetInspector WordEditor     Set wdRange   wdDoc Range 0  0    Create Range at character position 0 with length of 0 character s         if you need rtl      wdRange Paragraphs ReadingOrder   0   0 is rtl   1 is ltr      wdRange InsertAfter  mytext    End With  End Sub

User · Answer

My solution is to display an empty message first  with default signature   and insert the intended strHTMLBody into the existing HTMLBody   If  like PowerUser states  the signature is wiped out while editing HTMLBody you might consider storing the contents of ObjMail HTMLBody into variable strTemp immediately after ObjMail Display and add strTemp afterwards but that should not be necessary   Sub X strTo as string  strSubject as string  strHTMLBody as string      Dim OlApp As Outlook Application       Dim ObjMail As Outlook MailItem      Set OlApp   Outlook Application    Set ObjMail   OlApp CreateItem olMailItem      ObjMail To   strTo    ObjMail Subject   strSubject       ObjMail Display     You now have the default signature within ObjMail HTMLBody      Add this after adding strHTMLBody    ObjMail HTMLBody   strHTMLBody  amp  ObjMail HTMLBody      ObjMail Send  send immediately or      ObjMail close olSave  save as draft     Set OlApp   Nothing  End sub

User · Answer

I figured out a way  but it may be too sloppy for most   I ve got a simple Db and I want it to be able to generate emails for me  so here s the down and dirty solution I used   I found that the beginning of the body text is the only place I see the   lt div class WordSection1 gt   in the HTMLBody of a new email  so I just did a simple replace  replacing     lt div class WordSection1 gt  lt p class MsoNormal gt  lt o p gt     with     lt div class WordSection1 gt  lt p class MsoNormal gt  lt o p gt    amp  sBody   where sBody is the body content I want inserted   Seems to work so far    HTMLBody   Replace oEmail HTMLBody    lt div class WordSection1 gt  lt p class MsoNormal gt  lt o p gt      lt div class WordSection1 gt  lt p class MsoNormal gt  lt o p gt    amp  sBody

User · Answer

I have made this a Community Wiki answer because I could not have created it without PowerUser s research and the help in earlier comments   I took PowerUser s Sub X and added  Debug Print  n------      with different values for n Debug Print ObjMail HTMLBody   after every statement   From this I discovered the signature is not within  HTMLBody until after ObjMail Display and then only if I haven t added anything to the body   I went back to PowerUser s earlier solution that used C  Users    amp  Environ  username    amp    AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures Mysig txt     PowerUser was unhappy with this because he wanted his solution to work for others who would have different signatures   My signature is in the same folder and I cannot find any option to change this folder   I have only one signature so by reading the only HTM file in this folder  I obtained my only default signature   I created an HTML table and inserted it into the signature immediately following the  lt body gt  element and set the html body to the result   I sent the email to myself and the result was perfectly acceptable providing you like my formatting which I included to check that I could    My modified subroutine is   Sub X      Dim OlApp As Outlook Application   Dim ObjMail As Outlook MailItem    Dim BodyHtml As String   Dim DirSig As String   Dim FileNameHTMSig As String   Dim Pos1 As Long   Dim Pos2 As Long   Dim SigHtm As String    DirSig    C  Users    amp  Environ  username    amp                                     AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures     FileNameHTMSig   Dir  DirSig  amp      htm        Code to handle there being no htm signature or there being more than one    SigHtm   GetBoiler DirSig  amp       amp  FileNameHTMSig    Pos1   InStr 1  LCase SigHtm     lt body        Code to handle there being no body    Pos2   InStr Pos1  LCase SigHtm     gt         Code to handle there being no closing  gt  for the body element     BodyHtml     lt table border 0 width   100    style   Color   0000FF     amp               bgColor  F0F0F0 gt  lt tr gt  lt td align    center   gt HTML table lt  td gt    amp               lt  tr gt  lt  table gt  lt br gt     BodyHtml   Mid SigHtm  1  Pos2   1   amp  BodyHtml  amp  Mid SigHtm  Pos2   2     Set OlApp   Outlook Application   Set ObjMail   OlApp CreateItem olMailItem    ObjMail BodyFormat   olFormatHTML   ObjMail Subject    Subject goes here    ObjMail Recipients Add  my email address    ObjMail Display  End Sub   Since both PowerUser and I have found our signatures in C  Users    amp  Environ  username    amp    AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures I suggest this is the standard location for any Outlook installation   Can this default be changed   I cannot find anything to suggest it can   The above code clearly needs some development but it does achieve PowerUser s objective of creating an email body containing an HTML table above a signature

User · Answer

I like Mozzi s answer but found that it did not retain the default fonts that are user specific   The text all appeared in a system font as normal text   The code below retains the user s favourite fonts  while making it only a little longer   It is based on Mozzi s approach  uses a regular expression to replace the default body text and places the user s chosen Body text where it belongs by using GetInspector WordEditor   I found that the call to GetInspector did not populate the HTMLbody as dimitry streblechenko says above in this thread  at least  not in Office 2010  so the object is still displayed in my code   In passing  please note that it is important that the MailItem is created as an Object  not as a straightforward MailItem - see here for more   Oh  and sorry to those of different tastes  but I prefer longer descriptive variable names so that I can find routines    Public Function GetSignedMailItemAsObject ByVal ToAddress As String                          ByVal Subject As String                          ByVal Body As String                          SignatureName As String  As Object                                                                                                                    Creates a new MailItem in HTML format as an Object   Body  if provided  replaces all text in the default message   A Signature is appended at the end of the message   If SignatureName is invalid any existing default signature is left in place                                                                                                                       REQUIRED REFERENCES   VBScript regular expressions  5 5    Microsoft Scripting Runtime                                                                                                                    Dim OlM As Object                Do not define this as Outlook MailItem   If you do  some things will work and some won t  i e  SendUsingAccount  Dim Signature As String Dim Doc As Word Document Dim Regex As New VBScript RegExp 55 RegExp         can also use use Object if VBScript is not Referenced   Set OlM   Application CreateItem olMailItem  With OlM      To   ToAddress      Subject   Subject      SignatureName is the exactname that you gave your signature in the Message gt Insert gt Signature Dialog     Signature   GetSignature SignatureName      If Signature  lt  gt  vbNullString Then          Should really strip the terminal  lt  body tag out of signature by removing all characters from the start of the tag          but Outlook seems to handle this OK if you don t bother           Display                                 Needed   Without it  there is no existing HTMLbody available to work with          Set Doc   OlM GetInspector WordEditor    Get any existing body with the WordEditor and delete all of it         Doc Range Doc Content Start  Doc Content End    vbNullString  Delete all existing content - we don t want any default signature          Preserve all local email formatting by placing any new body text  followed by the Signature  into the empty HTMLbody          With Regex              IgnoreCase   True                   Case insensitive              Global   False                      Regex finds only the first match              MultiLine   True                    In case there are stray EndOfLines  there shouldn t be in HTML but Word exports of HTML can be dire               Pattern      lt body       lt   body      Look for the whole HTMLbody but do NOT include the terminal  lt  body tag in the value returned             OlM HTMLbody    Replace OlM HTMLbody    1   amp  Signature          End With   Regex         Doc Range Doc Content Start  Doc Content Start    Body  Place the required Body before the signature  it will get the default style           Close olSave                            Close the Displayed MailItem  actually Object  and Save it   If it is left open some later updates may fail      End If   Signature  lt  gt  vbNullString End With   OlM Set GetSignedMailItemAsObject   OlM End Function  Private Function GetSignature sigName As String  As String Dim oTextStream As Scripting TextStream Dim oSig As Object Dim appDataDir  Signature  sigPath  fileName As String Dim FileSys As Scripting FileSystemObject         Requires Microsoft Scripting Runtime to be available     appDataDir   Environ  APPDATA    amp    Microsoft Signatures      sigPath   appDataDir  amp       amp  sigName  amp    htm      Set FileSys   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject       Set oTextStream   FileSys OpenTextFile sigPath      Signature   oTextStream ReadAll       fix relative references to images  etc  in Signature       by making them absolute paths  OL will find the image     fileName   Replace sigName    htm        amp    files       Signature   Replace Signature  fileName  appDataDir  amp       amp  fileName      GetSignature   Signature End Function

User · Answer

The code below will create an outlook message  amp  keep the auto signature  Dim OApp As Object  OMail As Object  signature As String  Set OApp   CreateObject  Outlook Application   Set OMail   OApp CreateItem 0   With OMail      Display End With  signature   OMail body  With OMail       To    someone somedomain com        Subject    Type your email subject here        Attachments Add      body    Add body text here   amp  vbNewLine  amp  signature       Send End With  Set OMail   Nothing Set OApp   Nothing

User · Answer

Often this question is asked in the context of Ron de Bruin s RangeToHTML function  which creates an HTML PublishObject from an Excel Range  extracts that via FSO  and inserts the resulting stream HTML in to the email s HTMLBody  In doing so  this removes the default signature  the RangeToHTML function has a helper function GetBoiler which attempts to insert the default signature    Unfortunately  the poorly-documented Application CommandBars method is not available via Outlook   wdDoc Application CommandBars ExecuteMso  PasteExcelTableSourceFormatting    It will raise a runtime 6158     But we can still leverage the Word Document which is accessible via the MailItem GetInspector method  we can do something like this to copy  amp  paste the selection from Excel to the Outlook email body  preserving your default signature  if there is one     Dim rng as Range Set rng   Range  A1 F10    Modify as needed  With OutMail      To    xxxxx xxxxx com       BCC           Subject    Subject       Display     Dim wdDoc As Object         Word Document     Dim wdRange As Object       Word Range     Set wdDoc   OutMail GetInspector WordEditor     Set wdRange   wdDoc Range 0  0      wdRange InsertAfter vbCrLf  amp  vbCrLf      Copy the range in-place     rng Copy     wdRange Paste End With   Note that in some cases this may not perfectly preserve the column widths or in some instances the row heights  and while it will also copy shapes and other objects in the Excel range  this may also cause some funky alignment issues  but for simple tables and Excel ranges  it is very good

User · Answer

I need 50 rep to post a comment against the Signature Option I found most helpful  however I had an issue with images not showing correctly so I had to find a work around   This is my solution     Using  Morris Maynard s answer as a base https   stackoverflow com a 18455148 2337102 I then had to go through the following   Notes  Back up your  htm file before starting  copy  amp  paste to a secondary folder     You will be working with both the SignatureName htm and the SignatureName files Folder     You do not need HTML experience  the files will open in an editing program such as Notepad or Notepad   or your specified HTML Program Navigate to your Signature File location  standard should be C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures    Open the SignatureName htm file in a text htm editor  right click on the file   Edit with Program     Use Ctrl F and enter  png   jpg or if you don t know your image type  use image001 You will see something like   src  signaturename files image001 png    You need to change that to the whole address of the image location  C  Users YourName AppData Roaming Microsoft Signatures SignatureNameFolder files image001 or src  E  location Signatures SignatureNameFolder files image001 png    Save your file  overwrite it  you had of course backed up the original    Return to Outlook and Open New Mail Item  add your signature   I received a warning that the files had been changed  I clicked ok  I needed to do this twice  then once in the  Edit Signatures Menu        Some of the files in this webpage aren t in the expected location  Do you want to download them anyway  If you re sure the Web page is from a trusted source  click Yes   Run your Macro event  the images should now be showing    Credit MrExcel - VBA code signature code failure   http   bit ly 1gap9jY

User · Answer

Most of the other answers are simply concatenating their HTML body with the HTML signature  However  this does not work with images  and it turns out there is a more  standard  way of doing this 1  Microsoft Outlook pre-2007 which is configured with WordEditor as its editor  and Microsoft Outlook 2007 and beyond  use a slightly cut-down version of the Word Editor to edit emails  This means we can use the Microsoft Word Document Object Model to make changes to the email   Set objMsg   Application CreateItem olMailItem  objMsg GetInspector Display  Displaying an empty email will populate the default signature Set objSigDoc   objMsg GetInspector WordEditor Set objSel   objSigDoc Windows 1  Selection With objSel     Collapse wdCollapseStart     MoveEnd WdUnits wdStory  1     Copy  This will copy the signature End With objMsg HTMLBody     lt p gt OUR HTML STUFF HERE lt  p gt   With objSel     Move WdUnits wdStory  1  Move to the end of our new message     PasteAndFormat wdFormatOriginalFormatting  Paste the copied signature End With   I am not a VB programmer  wrote this originally in another language so if it does not  compile it is because this is my first VB method  P    Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming  S  Mosher   Chapter 17  Working with Item Bodies  Working with Outlook Signatures

User · Answer

Dim OutApp As Object  OutMail As Object  LogFile As String Dim cell As Range  S As String  WMBody As String  lFile As Long  S   Environ  appdata    amp    Microsoft Signatures   If Dir S  vbDirectory   lt  gt  vbNullString Then S   S  amp  Dir  S  amp     htm   Else S      S   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   GetFile S  OpenAsTextStream 1   -2  ReadAll  WMBody     lt br gt Hi All  lt br gt  lt br gt    amp              Last line  lt br gt  lt br gt    amp  S  Add the Signature to end of HTML Body   Just thought I d share how I achieve this  Not too sure if it s correct in the defining variables sense but it s small and easy to read which is what I like   I attach WMBody to  HTMLBody within the object Outlook Application OLE   Hope it helps someone   Thanks  Wes

User · Answer

The existing answers had a few problems for me   I needed to insert text  e g   Good Day John Doe   with html formatting where you would normally type your message  At least on my machine  Outlook adds 2 blank lines above the signature where you should start typing   These should obviously be removed  replaced with custom HTML    The code below does the job   Please note the following   The  From  parameter allows you to choose the account  since there could be different default signatures for different email accounts  The  Recipients  parameter expects an array of emails  and it will  Resolve  the added email  i e  find it in contacts  as if you had typed it in the  To  box  Late binding is used  so no references are required   Opens an outlook email with the provided email body and default signature  Parameters     from  Email address of Account to send from   Wildcards are supported e g    example com    recipients  Array of recipients   Recipient can be a Contact name or email address    subject  Email subject    htmlBody  Html formatted body to insert before signature  just body markup  should not contain html  head or body tags  Public Sub CreateMail from As String  recipients  subject As String  htmlBody As String      Dim oApp  oAcc As Object          Set oApp   CreateObject  quot Outlook application quot            With oApp CreateItem 0   olMailItem   0          Ensure we are sending with the correct account  to insert the correct signature           oAcc is of type Outlook Account  which has other properties that could be filtered with if required          SmtpAddress is usually equal to the raw email address          SendUsingAccount   Nothing         For Each oAcc In oApp Session Accounts             If CStr oAcc SmtpAddress    from Or CStr oAcc SmtpAddress  Like from Then                 Set  SendUsingAccount   oAcc             End If         Next oAcc         If  SendUsingAccount Is Nothing Then Err Raise -1     quot Unknown email account  quot   amp  from         For Each addr In recipients             With  recipients Add addr                   This will resolve the recipient as if you had typed the name email and pressed Tab Enter                  Resolve             End With         Next addr          subject   subject          Display  HTMLBody is only populated after this line          Remove blank lines at the top of the body          htmlBody   Replace  htmlBody   quot  lt o p gt  amp nbsp  lt  o p gt  quot    quot  quot            Insert the html at the start of the  body  tag         Dim bodyTagEnd As Long  bodyTagEnd   InStr InStr 1   htmlBody   quot  lt body quot     htmlBody   quot  gt  quot            htmlBody   Left  htmlBody  bodyTagEnd   amp  htmlBody  amp  Right  htmlBody  Len  htmlBody  - bodyTagEnd      End With     Set oApp   Nothing End Sub  Use as follows  CreateMail from   quot   contoso com quot         recipients   Array  quot john doe contoso com quot    quot Jane Doe quot    quot unknown example com quot          subject    quot Test Email quot         htmlBody    quot  lt p gt Good Day All lt  p gt  lt p gt Hello  lt b gt World  lt  b gt  lt  p gt  quot   Result

User · Answer

I constructed this approach while looking for how to send a message on a recurring schedule  I found the approach where you reference the Inspector property of the created message did not add the signature I wanted  I have more than one account set up in Outlook  with separate signatures    The approach below is fairly flexible and still simple       Private Sub Add Signature ByVal addy as String  ByVal subj as String  ByVal body as String         Dim oMsg As MailItem        Set oMsg   Application CreateItem olMailItem         oMsg To   addy        oMsg Subject   subj        oMsg Body   body        Dim sig As String          Mysig is the name you gave your signature in the OL Options dialog         sig   ReadSignature  Mysig htm          oMsg HTMLBody   Item Body  amp    lt p gt  lt BR  gt  lt BR  gt  lt  p gt    amp  sig   oMsg HTMLBody        oMsg Send        Set oMsg   Nothing     End Sub      Private Function ReadSignature sigName As String  As String        Dim oFSO  oTextStream  oSig As Object        Dim appDataDir  sig  sigPath  fileName As String        appDataDir   Environ  APPDATA    amp    Microsoft Signatures         sigPath   appDataDir  amp       amp  sigName         Set oFSO   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject          Set oTextStream   oFSO OpenTextFile sigPath         sig   oTextStream ReadAll          fix relative references to images  etc  in sig          by making them absolute paths  OL will find the image        fileName   Replace sigName    htm        amp    files          sig   Replace sig  fileName  appDataDir  amp       amp  fileName         ReadSignature   sig     End Function

[vba] How to add default signature in Outlook

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