Email Signature Not Showing in Gmail? 7 Fixes (2026)

An email signature not showing in Gmail is almost always caused by one of four things: the signature was never assigned to "New emails" or "Reply/forward," Gmail's mobile app has its own separate signature setting, a delegated or alias account is sending under the wrong identity, or a browser cache is showing you a stale compose window. Each cause has a specific fix, and most take under two minutes to resolve.

Few things are more frustrating than writing a careful signature, saving it, and then watching your next email go out blank. Gmail treats desktop, mobile, and per-alias signatures as separate settings, so a signature that shows on your laptop can vanish the moment you send from your phone.

This guide walks through every place Gmail hides a broken signature setting, in the order most likely to fix your problem first, plus what to check if you manage signatures for a whole team.

Why Your Gmail Signature Stops Showing Up

Gmail signature settings are split across three layers that do not automatically sync with each other: the web app, the mobile app, and any Google Workspace alias or delegated account you send from. A signature saved in one layer has no effect on the others.

According to Google's Gmail Help documentation, mobile Gmail signatures are configured entirely separately from desktop Gmail signatures, which is the single most common reason a signature "disappears" the moment someone sends from their phone instead of their laptop.

Fix 1: Check the "Insert Signature" Toggle for New Emails and Replies

Gmail lets you choose whether a signature appears on new emails, on replies and forwards, both, or neither. If this dropdown is set to "no signature" for one of them, that signature simply will not appear, even though it is saved correctly.

Open Gmail on desktop and click the gear icon, then See all settings.
Scroll to the Signature section.
Below your signature text, find the two dropdowns: For new emails use and On reply/forward use.
Set both to your signature name (not "No signature").
Scroll down and click Save Changes.

This single setting accounts for the majority of "my signature just stopped working" reports, because it is easy to change by accident while editing signature text.

Fix 2: Confirm You Are Editing the Right Signature (Multiple Signatures)

Gmail supports multiple named signatures per account. If you created a new one to test a template change, your account may now default to an empty or outdated signature instead of the one you meant to edit.

Open Settings > See all settings > Signature and check the signature list on the left side of the panel. Click through each one to confirm which text is actually assigned in the dropdowns from Fix 1. Delete unused duplicates so future edits do not land in the wrong place.

Fix 3: Set Up the Signature Separately in the Gmail Mobile App

Gmail mobile signature not showing: the Gmail iOS and Android apps use their own signature field that is completely separate from desktop Gmail. Saving a signature on the web does nothing for the mobile app until you also set it there.

To fix it on mobile:

Open the Gmail app and tap the hamburger menu, then Settings.
Select the account you are sending from.
Tap Mobile Signature (Android) or Signature (iOS).
Paste or type your signature, then tap the back arrow to save.

Mobile signatures are plain text only. HTML formatting, images, and clickable social icons from your desktop signature will not carry over. If your team relies on a branded HTML signature, this gap is worth flagging before someone sends an unbranded mobile reply to a client.

Fix 4: Check "Insert Signature Before Quoted Text" for Replies

Email signature not showing on replies: if your signature works on new emails but disappears on replies, check the checkbox under the signature dropdowns labeled Insert this signature before quoted text in replies and remove the "--" line that precedes it. When this is unchecked, some reply threads push the signature below a long quoted thread where it is easy to miss, or Gmail can trim it as part of "Show trimmed content."

Also check whether "On reply/forward use" (Fix 1) is set correctly. It is common to fix new-email signatures and forget replies use a separate dropdown.

Fix 5: Verify the Signature on the Correct Alias or Delegated Account

If you send from more than one address in Gmail (a "Send mail as" alias, a Google Group, or a delegated inbox), each one can have its own signature assigned, or none at all.

Go to Settings > See all settings > Accounts.
Under Send mail as, note every address listed.
Return to the Signature section and confirm a signature is assigned separately to each address you actually send from.

This is the most common cause of missing signatures in support, sales, and shared inboxes, where a team member sends as support@company.com but the signature was only ever configured for their personal @company.com address.

Fix 6: Clear the Compose Window Cache (Browser Issue)

Occasionally Gmail's compose window caches an older version of the page and will not reflect a signature you just saved, even though the settings are correct.

Close the compose window entirely and start a brand-new email.
Refresh the Gmail tab (hard refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).
If it still does not appear, sign out and back in, or test in an incognito/private window to rule out a browser extension interfering with the compose editor.

Ad blockers and privacy extensions occasionally strip signature HTML from the compose editor. Testing in incognito mode with extensions disabled isolates this quickly.

Fix 7: Confirm the Signature Was Actually Saved

This sounds obvious, but it is worth ruling out directly: after pasting or editing signature content, you must scroll to the bottom of the Settings page and click Save Changes. Navigating away, closing the tab, or switching settings tabs before saving discards the edit, and Gmail gives no warning that it did so.

Email signature not showing in Gmail after saving: reopen Settings and check the Signature field again. If your edit is gone, the save did not register, most often because the page was closed before the Save Changes button was clicked.

When It's a Team-Wide Problem, Not Just Your Account

If multiple people on your team report signatures not showing, or showing inconsistently, the root cause is usually that each person is managing their own signature by hand across desktop and mobile, with no single source of truth. One person forgets Fix 1, another forgets Fix 3, and the result looks random from the outside even though each case has an individual, fixable cause.

Signkit solves this at the account level instead of the settings-menu level. You build the signature once in a template, and Signkit pushes it to every team member's Gmail account through Google Workspace, so there is no per-person dropdown to misconfigure and no separate mobile step to forget. If someone's signature is missing, it is a deployment issue you can see and fix centrally, not a scavenger hunt through one person's settings.

For the full walkthrough of setting up signatures in Gmail from scratch, see our Gmail email signature guide. If your organization uses Google Workspace admin controls to push signatures centrally, see our Google Workspace email signature guide.

Key Takeaways

Check the "For new emails" and "On reply/forward" dropdowns first. Most missing-signature reports trace back to one of these being set to "No signature."
Gmail mobile has a separate signature field. A signature saved on desktop will not appear on the iOS or Android app until you set it there too, and mobile signatures are plain text only.
Each "Send mail as" alias needs its own signature. Signatures do not automatically carry over between your primary address and any aliases or delegated accounts.
Always scroll down and click Save Changes. Gmail does not warn you if an edit was never saved, so a missing signature can simply mean the last save never went through.
For teams, centralize signature deployment instead of relying on individual settings. A tool like Signkit removes the per-person, per-device configuration that causes most of these issues at scale.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my email signature not showing up in Gmail?

The most common cause is that the "For new emails use" or "On reply/forward use" dropdown under Settings > Signature is set to "No signature" instead of your saved signature. Check both dropdowns and make sure each one points to the correct signature name, then click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Why does my Gmail signature work on desktop but not on my phone?

Gmail's mobile app uses a completely separate signature setting from the desktop web version. You need to open the Gmail app, go to Settings, select your account, and add your signature under Mobile Signature (Android) or Signature (iOS) separately. Mobile signatures also only support plain text, not HTML or images.

Why is my signature missing on replies but appears on new emails?

This usually means the "On reply/forward use" dropdown is set differently from "For new emails use," or the "Insert signature before quoted text" checkbox is unchecked, causing the signature to end up hidden beneath a trimmed quoted thread. Check both settings under Settings > Signature to confirm they match.

Why is my email signature not showing when I send from an alias?

Gmail treats each "Send mail as" address as its own identity with its own signature assignment. If you send from a shared inbox or alias like support@yourcompany.com, you need to assign a signature to that specific address under Settings > Accounts > Send mail as, separate from your primary address.

How do I stop this from happening across my whole team?

Individual Gmail signature settings are managed per person and per device, so the same mistakes (wrong dropdown, missing mobile setup, unassigned alias) tend to repeat across a team. Centralized tools like Signkit push a single signature template to every employee's Gmail account through Google Workspace, removing the manual settings step entirely.

Tired of chasing down missing signatures across your team's Gmail accounts? Try Signkit free, no credit card required, and deploy signatures centrally with no per-person settings menu to manage.