My preferred Mac OS X email application is currently Apple Mail. However, in the past year I’ve also used Postbox, Outlook, Airmail and Sparrow. All in my quest to find the perfect email app!

Rather than add my email signature to each email application, I instead use a simple and free multi-line snippet expander that’s part of OS X: the Keyboard Preference pane.

Set up multi-line snippet

First, type out your email signature in any text editor. Then select the text block and copy to the clipboard.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard and click the Text tab. Create a new text replacement entry by clicking the + button.

Type in the unique text string in the Replace column. I use ,sig for my main email signature. Paste in the text block in the With column.

Snippet in Use

That’s it! Now when you want to quickly insert your email signature, just type ,sig and confirm the replacement by hitting return or clicking the blue text.

You can easily create separate email signatures by simply adding an additional number or letter: ,sigh .sigb ,sige — for home, business, extended, etc. You get the idea!

Note: You can also create multi-line replacement text directly within the Keyboard Preference pane. The trick is to press Option-Return to insert a new line, instead of merely Return. But I don’t prefer this method because you can only see a single line at a time – the line you’re typing. I think it’s easier to type the lines elsewhere and then copy and paste.