Gmail – Assign a signature per contact in Gmail

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This Super User question asks something similar, but it was related to Outlook and without an applicable answer.

Is there a way to to store a signature preference on a per contact basis? Or does anyone know of an extension to do something like this?

If you write to your mother, child, co-worker, vendor, or customer they all don't all expect the same thing. A custom field can be assigned to a contact, could that or another field be used somehow?

I just want to assign a specific signature to a user. Very similar to the way a custom ringtone can be assigned to a contact on a phone.

Best Answer

Signatures are tied to the from: address you're using. You can use so-called "plus addressing" to define multiple different addresses that are actually just your address and assign signatures to each.

Here's an example:

  1. Go to Settings | Accounts and Import
  2. Click "Add another email address you own"
  3. In the Email address: field, put username+mom@gmail.com
    • Normally you'd have to verify this address, but Google is smart enough to know that this is just your regular address
    • Obviously, put your actual username in instead of "username"
  4. Go to Settings | General and go down the the "Signature" section
  5. Change the dropdown to be the email address you just created
  6. Modify your signature to whatever you like
    • How about "I love you Mom!"?

Now, when you send a message to Mom, just be sure to change the from: address to be the special address for Mom. Then your custom signature will be included.

One nice feature is that when Mom replies to that address, assuming you have turned on "When replying to a message: Reply from the same address the message was sent to" when you reply back this address will already be selected.

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