How to Backup Outlook Signatures and Restore it Later

If you are using Outlook 2010 at work, it is natural for you to configure one or more Outlook signatures to quickly sign off on your email to various clients. However, if you find yourself in a place where you need to upgrade or replace your workstation, you have to set up all your applications right from scratch and that includes Windows OS as well as other Office applications. Typically, you would take a backup of your email or PST files for restoring it back on your new machine but your signatures, which are usually not stored in the PST file will be lost forever. However, you can still preserve them and in this Outlook 2010 tutorial, we’ll show you how to backup signatures in Outlook 2010 and restore it later on the new machine.

To Backup Outlook Signatures

1. Navigate to the Outlook 2010 Signature location. C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures.

Alternatively,

1. Open Outlook 2010. On the File tab, click Options.

2. On the left pane, click Mail.

3. In the Compose messages section, press Ctrl while clicking on the Signatures button.

4. The Signatures folder will open up in a Windows Explorer window. Copy all the files in this folder to another location, to the cloud or to your pen drive. Outlook will usually preserve your email signatures in 3 formats, Plain Text (.txt), HTML (.htm), and Rich Text (.rtf). Make sure you backup all three formats of your signatures.

To Restore Email Signatures in Outlook 2010

Now that you have backed up your Outlook signatures, here’s what you need to do to transfer Outlook signatures when you get your new machine.

1. Go to the location where you have the backup of your email signatures and copy them.

2. Now navigate to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Signatures location on your new machine and paste it.

The next time you open Outlook and compose a new email, your signatures will be available. However, if you had previously assigned a particular signature as the default signature for various tasks such as for replies or forwards, you will have to reassign them again. To do that:

1. Open Outlook 2010 on the new workstation. On the File tab, click Options.

2. On the left pane, click Mail.

3. In the Compose messages section, click Signatures.

4. In the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, in the Select signature to edit section, select a signature and in the Choose default signature section, select the email account to make the assignment.

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How to Backup and Restore Signatures in Outlook 2010

Now that you know how to backup signatures in Outlook 2010, make sure that you do it right before you change your workstation and save yourself the extra work later on.