So I finally got Outlook for Mac at work this week, and I really like it so far. One thing I immediately noticed was missing, however, was the ability to setup signatures to not show on any replies and forwards. This is pretty important to me, since I’m frequently getting myself into pretty deep email chains, and I don’t want my email and phone number on all 75 emails in them.

This was definitely a problem that needed a fix. A quick google search, and I found a solution: Application Shortcuts. This is a pretty awesome tool on the mac, that seems glaringly absent from windows. What it does is basically give you the ability to set keyboard shortcuts for any application, and manage them all via system preferences:

System preferences keyboard shortcuts mac
Mac keyboard shortcuts menu.
  1. After setting up my signature in Outlook, I went to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.
  2. In the list on the left, I went down to Application Shortcuts.
  3. I hit the plus sign to add a new shortcut.
  4. In the applications dropdown, I found Outlook.
  5. The next step was extremely important to get this to work. In the Menu Title box, you need to add the menu name exactly as it appears in the app. This does not include the path to this menu item. For example my menu item was to insert my signature called Standard (Draft > Signatures > Standard), so I put just the word “Standard” in this box.
  6. Then assign the keyboard command, save, and viola! You now have a keyboard command to add a signature whenever you like in Outlook.