Features and feature comparison

🔗Overview

Set-OutlookSignatures is the most advanced, secure and versatile free and open-source tool for managing email signatures and out-of-office replies. The optional Benefactor Circle add-on unlocks even more powerful features tailored for business environments.

It delivers everything you'd expect from a modern solution: Centralized management, seamless deployment, and full control across all Outlook editions on all platforms: Classic and New, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Web, Windows.

Thanks to its forward-thinking architecture, designed not around a commercial business model but around practical utility, data privacy, and digital sovereignty, it offers unique capabilities that set it apart.

For a quick overview, check our feature comparison with competitors. If you want to know exactly what is possible, or if you are looking for inspiration for new use cases, you can find the complete list of features here. Warning: It's long!

🔗Features

With Set-OutlookSignatures and the optional Benefactor Circle add-on, signatures and out-of-office replies can be:

• Generated from templates in DOCX or HTML file format.
• Customized with a broad range of variables, including photos and images, from Entra ID, Active Directory and other sources.
• Variables are available for the currently logged-on user, the current mailbox, and their managers.
• Designed for barrier-free accessibility with custom link and image descriptions for screen readers and comparable tools.
• Applied to all mailboxes (including shared mailboxes¹), specific mailbox groups, specific email addresses (including alias and secondary addresses), or specific user and mailbox properties, for every mailbox across all Outlook profiles (Outlook, New Outlook¹, Outlook on the web¹), including automapped and additional mailboxes¹.
• Created with different names from the same template, one template can be used for many mailboxes.
• Assigned time ranges¹ within which they are valid.
• Set as default signature for new emails, or for replies and forwards (signatures only).
• Set as default OOF message¹ for internal or external recipients (OOF messages only).
• Set in Outlook on the web¹ for the currently logged-in user, including mirroring signatures to the cloud as roaming signatures¹ (Linux/macOS/Windows, Classic and New Outlook¹).
• Signature can be centrally managed only¹, or exist along user-created signatures.
• Automatically added to new emails, reply emails and appointments with the Outlook add-in¹.
• Copied to an additional path¹ for easy access to signatures on mobile devices or for use with email clients and apps besides Outlook: Apple Mail, Google Gmail, Samsung Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, GNOME Evolution, KDE KMail, and others.
• Create an email draft containing all available signatures in HTML and plain text for easy access in mail clients that do not have a signatures API.
• Write protected (Outlook on Windows signatures only).

Set-OutlookSignatures can be run by users on Windows, Linux and macOS clients, including shared devices and terminal servers - or on a central system with a service account¹.
On clients, it can run as part of the logon script, as scheduled task, or on user demand via a desktop icon, start menu entry, shortcut or any other way of starting a program - whatever your software deployment mechanism allows.

Sample templates for signatures and OOF messages demonstrate many features and are provided as .docx and .htm files.

Phone numbers and postal addresses can be formatted by international standards or custom requirements.

Simulation mode allows content creators and admins to simulate the behavior of the software for a specific user at a specific point in time, and to inspect the resulting signature files before going live.

SimulateAndDeploy¹ allows to deploy signatures and out-of-office replies without any client deployment or end user interaction. Signatures are saved to the mailbox as roaming signatures (Exchange Online mailboxes only) and are also made available for the Outlook add-in (all Exchange mailboxes).

It works on premises, in hybrid and in cloud-only environments. The software is designed to work in big and complex environments: Exchange resource forest scenarios, AD trusts, multi-level AD subdomains, cross-tenant and multitenant scenarios.

All public, national, and sovereign clouds are supported: Public, US Government (GCC, GCC High, DoD), China, sovereign clouds Bleu, Delos, GovSG, and more.

It is multi-instance capable by using different template paths, configuration files and script parameters.

Set-OutlookSignatures requires no installation on servers or clients. You only need a standard SMB file share on a central system, and optionally Office on your clients.

There is also no telemetry and no "calling home". Emails and directory data are not routed through a 3rd party data center or cloud service, and DNS records (SPF) and mail flow remain unchanged.

A documented implementation approach, based on real life experiences implementing the software in multi-client environments with a five-digit number of mailboxes, contains proven procedures and recommendations for product managers, architects, operations managers, account managers and email and client administrators.

The software core is Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS). It is published under the European Union Public License, which is approved, among others, by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI), and is compatible with the General Public License (GPL) and other popular licenses.

After a certain period of use, the subtle note 'Free and open-source Set-OutlookSignatures' is appended to signatures. This tagline can be easily removed¹.

Remark 1 (¹): Some features are exclusive to the Benefactor Circle add-on.

🔗Feature comparison