Smarter Replies, Forwards, and Alias Signatures in v4.32.0

2026-10-08

Your first reply to a prospective customer is often one of the most important emails you will send. Yet Outlook treats it exactly like the twentieth message in a long conversation and applies the same reply signature.

The same issue exists when forwarding an email to a new recipient. Outlook sees a forward, but the recipient may experience it as the first interaction with your organization.

Message type is not the only context that matters. Many Microsoft 365 mailboxes also send from aliases or secondary SMTP addresses representing different brands, legal entities, regions, or business functions. In these cases, the selected sender address may require a different signature.

Version 4.32.0 introduces new options that help the Outlook add-in choose signatures based on two important signals:

• The role of the message in a conversation
• The sender address selected by the user

The new functionality is available in the Outlook add-in, which is part of the Benefactor Circle add-on.

Tip: CustomRulesCode.js now also includes new sample code for a related option: No signature for self-addressed emails

🔗Available now

Version 4.32.0 of the following components is available now:

• Set-OutlookSignatures
• The Benefactor Circle add-on
• The Outlook add-in

New users can get started using the Quickstart Guide.

Existing users can download the latest release and review the complete changelog at set-outlooksignatures.com/download.

🔗When replies and forwards are really new conversations

Most organizations use:

• A comprehensive signature for new emails
• A shorter signature for ongoing conversations

Outlook normally selects between these signatures based on whether the user clicked New Email, Reply, or Forward.

Business communication is rarely that simple: A first reply to a website inquiry, customer request, supplier question, job application, or partner introduction is often the beginning of a new relationship rather than the continuation of an established conversation.

Similarly, a forwarded message may be technically classified as a forward while representing the first communication between the sender and the recipient.

Version 4.32.0 introduces two optional Outlook add-in settings to address these situations:

• TREAT_FIRST_REPLY_AS_NEW_MAIL
• TREAT_FORWARD_AS_NEW_MAIL

Both settings are disabled by default, preserving Outlook's native behavior unless an organization explicitly enables them.

🔗Treating the first reply as a new message

When TREAT_FIRST_REPLY_AS_NEW_MAIL is enabled, the Outlook add-in uses the default new-message signature when the current sender writes the first own reply in a conversation branch.

Subsequent replies continue to use the standard reply signature.

Consider a prospective customer who submits an inquiry through email. The salesperson clicks Reply, but this is the first email the prospect receives from the organization.

A comprehensive new-message signature can ensure that the first response includes:

• Complete contact information
• Corporate branding
• Relevant campaign content
• Booking or scheduling links
• Legal or regulatory information

The same principle applies to customer support, recruiting, supplier communication, and other situations in which the recipient's first interaction begins with a reply.

Interested in the wider business value of email signatures? See Are You Missing Out on the Most Overlooked Marketing Channel?.

🔗Treating forwarded messages as new messages

When TREAT_FORWARD_AS_NEW_MAIL is enabled, forwarded emails receive the default new-message signature instead of the standard reply-and-forward signature.

For example, a support representative may forward a customer issue to an external service provider. Although Outlook classifies the message as a forward, it may be the first time the external recipient has communicated with the representative or the organization.

A complete signature is often more appropriate in this situation than a shortened signature intended for an ongoing conversation.

The same applies when employees forward information to suppliers, business partners, external consultants, or legal counsel.

Neither feature requires users to change how they work. They continue to click Reply and Forward as usual. The Outlook add-in simply receives more context for selecting the most appropriate signature.

Organizations using CUSTOM_RULES_CODE can access this conversation context through the new itemIsFirstBranchReply property. Custom rules can also access the effective Outlook add-in configuration through the new addInConfig property.

Configuration details and requirements for both settings are available in .\run_before_deployment.ps1.

🔗The right default signature for aliases and secondary addresses

Many mailboxes have more than one sender address.

A user may have a primary address for everyday communication and additional addresses for:

• Another brand or subsidiary
• A separate legal entity
• A regional organization
• A campaign or customer-facing identity
• A former company domain
• A specialized business function

The signature should match the address from which the message is sent.

Outlook can assign default signatures at mailbox level, but it cannot natively assign a different default signature to each sender address belonging to the same mailbox. This can result in a message being sent from one identity while displaying the branding, contact details, or legal information of another.

Version 4.32.0 adds two low-priority INI tags for this scenario:

• defaultNewLowPrio
• defaultReplyFwdLowPrio

A low-priority tag sets a default signature only when a standard tag has not already claimed that default.

The standard tags remain:

• defaultNew
• defaultReplyFwd

This distinction allows the mailbox's primary signature to remain Outlook's normal default while the Outlook add-in selects a more specific signature when the user sends from an alias or secondary SMTP address.

Consider a mailbox with the following addresses:

• Primary address: primary@example.com
• Secondary address: secondary@example.com

The primary signature remains the standard default for the mailbox. The secondary signature is marked as a low-priority default and is associated with secondary@example.com.

[primary.docx]
defaultNew
defaultReplyFwd

[secondary.docx]
secondary@example.com
defaultNewLowPrio
defaultReplyFwdLowPrio

Outlook sees both signatures and continues to use the primary signature as its standard default.

When the Outlook add-in detects that the user is sending from secondary@example.com, it can automatically select the secondary signature.

This provides the appropriate result in both situations:

• Messages from primary@example.com use the primary signature.
• Messages from secondary@example.com use the secondary signature.

If no signature has been configured specifically for an alias or secondary SMTP address, the add-in now falls back to the primary SMTP address. Organizations can therefore introduce address-specific signatures selectively without risking that messages from other aliases receive no suitable signature.

The low-priority tags are particularly useful when addresses represent different brands, legal entities, or regional identities. They help ensure that the visible sender address and the inserted signature remain consistent without replacing the mailbox's established Outlook defaults.

For a detailed explanation of the underlying use case, see SMTP Alias Signatures in Outlook.

🔗Further improvements in v4.32.0

Version 4.32.0 also includes improvements to rendering, accessibility, enterprise compatibility, performance, and reliability.

• More consistent HTML rendering: Generated HTML signatures now include explicit margin-top, margin-bottom, and line-height values for every paragraph, improving spacing consistency across email clients.
• Improved accessibility: Image alt and title attributes are synchronized where appropriate while respecting parent-link tooltips and decorative images.
• Better support for Exchange resource forests: Linked mailboxes and their hosting environments are identified earlier, allowing a Microsoft Graph connection to be enforced when a linked mailbox is hosted in Exchange Online.
• Faster dependency copying: Copying dependencies over SMB/CIFS network shares now minimizes network requests, uses native C# and .NET calls, and performs eligible operations in parallel.
• More reliable country-name resolution: The ResolveCountry PowerShell module simplifies country-name handling, reduces dependence on CLDR metadata exposed by .NET and the operating system, and adds fuzzy matching.
• Outlook add-in improvements: The task pane now includes a refresh button. Images work when inserting signatures into Outlook on the web appointments in Exchange Online, and a possible endless logging loop with DEBUG enabled has been prevented.
• Benefactor Circle add-on fix: SimulateUser is converted to a user principal names before comparison. This fixes roaming-signature uploads in SimulateAndDeploy when SimulateUser does not match the UPN of the simulated user. Thanks to Hunter Harris.
• Maintenance: Sample templates, default replacement variables.ps1, the Quickstart Guide, and several dependencies have been updated or refactored.

🔗Small settings, meaningful results

The new conversation-context settings and low-priority defaults address different aspects of the same challenge: Outlook's technical classification does not always reflect the business context of a message.

A reply may represent a first introduction. A forward may begin a new external conversation. An alias may represent a different brand or legal entity.

Version 4.32.0 gives organizations more control over all three situations while allowing users to continue working in Outlook as usual.

The result is signature selection that more accurately reflects:

• Who is sending
• Which identity they are using
• Who is receiving the message
• Where the message sits in the conversation

Organizations can combine these features with the extensive options described in the Configuration parameters documentation.

For a broader overview, see:

• The Outlook add-in
• The Benefactor Circle add-on
• SMTP Alias Signatures in Outlook

🔗Download v4.32.0

Version 4.32.0 includes smarter signature selection, improved alias handling, more consistent HTML rendering, accessibility refinements, enterprise compatibility improvements, and reliability fixes across Set-OutlookSignatures, the Benefactor Circle add-on, and the Outlook add-in.

Download the latest version and review the complete release notes at set-outlooksignatures.com/download.

🔗Set-OutlookSignatures centralizes email signatures and out-of-office replies across every Outlook platform

Consistent branding for Marketing, centralized control for IT, and zero manual effort for employees. Sovereign by design, it keeps data within systems you already trust.