Illustration: Andy Wolber/TechRepublic

People place all sorts of images in electronic mail signatures. In organizations, the inserted epitome is typically a logo, an ad or a promotional image. Sometimes it's a photo or stylized image of the sender. Images in personal email signatures oft signal something about the person or the person's interests.

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If you use Gmail, you lot may upload an image or insert an image from the web or Google Drive into your signature. And if you use Gmail as part of Google Workspace, an administrator can configure a signature—including an image—that appends to all outgoing email, every bit well. But any image an administrator includes must be available at a public web link, and so the steps below describe how to get your prototype onto a Google Site in order to obtain a public link.

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

How to add an image in a personal Gmail account signature

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

  1. Get to Gmail in a desktop-class spider web browser.
  2. If needed, sign in to your Gmail account.
  3. In the upper correct area, select the Sprocket (settings) | Run across All Settings | General (from the carte du jour options listed across the summit).
  4. Scroll down to the Signature department.
  5. Either choose the "+ Create New" push button or select an existing signature.
  6. In the signature area to the correct, enter and format any text or links you want in your signature.
  7. Select the Insert epitome selection (Effigy A), then navigate to the image you want.
  8. When finished, ringlet to the bottom of the page and select the Salve Changes button.

Figure A

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

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

A Google Workspace ambassador may manage email footers that suspend to every outbound email for an organization. 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), so scroll to Append Footer and choose Configure (Figure B). To learn how outbound footers piece of work in Google Workspace, read my article, How to gear up a Gmail signature for your organization.

Figure B

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

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

I advise you lot create and maintain a Google Site where you add images, since any paradigm stored on a Google Site page 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 dedicated to your outbound images, you might:

  1. Blazon site.new in a desktop-class browser.
  2. Edit the title for your site (e.chiliad., Promotional Footer Images).
  3. Then select Insert | Images to either Upload or Select images to your site (Effigy C). Alternatively, y'all might select Insert | Bulldoze and and then 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 then choose either to Upload or Select an paradigm.
  4. Select Publish, then edit the web accost for your site (east.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-down and cull Public (Figure D), then select Done.

    7. Figure D

    Modify your Site settings to make your published site Public.
  7. Select Done over again. The box should now display Anyone nether Who Tin can View My Site. Select Publish.
  8. Next, select the drib-down to the correct of Publish, so choose View Published Site (Effigy E). This should open the site in a new browser tab. Switch to that tab.

    9. Figure Eastward

    Once public and published, select the drib-down options next to the Publish bill of fare and choose View published site.
  9. On your site, right-click on the image you lot want to insert into your outbound footer, then select Re-create Epitome Address (Figure F).

Figure F

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

You at present take the public link y'all demand to paste into the prompt afterwards you lot select the image icon in the Append Footer section of the Admin console. As an editor of the site, you can always return to the site and copy the link to the published page. Share the link with others, and they'll exist able to access the page.

Optionally, you tin can take steps to brand the footer page a bit less easy to detect. To do this, make sure you accept at least ii pages on your Google Site, and that your images are not on the Dwelling house folio of the site. Then, while editing your Site, select Pages, then click on the three vertical dots to the right of your Footer page proper name. Choose Hide from navigation (Figure G), which will remove the page from Google Site navigation menus. Since the page is omitted from the card structure, it won't be available for a casual site visitor to access.

Effigy G

You lot might brand your footer image page more difficult to detect with the Hibernate From Navigation option.

How practise you use images in Gmail signatures?

Do you include standard information, such as contact or company information, in your signatures? Or do you personalize your signature with favorite images, phrases or quotes? Or practise you "go minimalist" and omit the use of signatures entirely? Let me know how you apply—or don't use—images in Gmail signatures, either with a comment beneath or on Twitter (@awolber).