If you:

• have more than one “from” address connected to your Gmail or Yahoo account, and
• use Google Chrome, or are thinking about using Chrome,

then this tip is for you. 

I operated with one default signature for a long time. You can get by, but if you have a few positions that you juggle and are constantly corresponding with different groups of people, it is nice to be able to have a signature that corresponds to each respective role.

Rather than manually changing it every time, there is an great little Chrome extension that allows you to have multiple HTML signatures that correspond to different “from” addresses. Check out Autopen. If you change your “from” address when composing a message, the extension will automatically change your signature for you.

Take a look at an example from my Gmail account. This is my “Default” signature:

Then, when I change my “from” address to my Hoopla account:

The natural difficulty with browser extensions for web-based applications is that they reside on a single computer rather than within the application itself. With Autopen, however, they allow synchronization of signatures. Of course, you need to have the extension installed on the computer, but once you do, you just need to login and click “Sync” and you will have all your signatures delivered right to your email client.

This is just another yet another handy feature that allows Gmail to get one step closer to replacing multiple email accounts entirely. Plus, it make emailing a lot more efficient if you juggle accounts and signatures. If you combine this with some of my tips from my Gmail Tips post, you can turn Gmail into a virtual Outlook or Mail client!