Find the right sign-off for the right recipient, on the right occasion. Browse our comprehensive list.
What type of sign off are you looking for?
A good email sign-off is one that’s tailored to the recipient, the topic, and the emotional tone of your email. A good email ending would put an emphasis on your main message relating to the email topic. The best sign-off will also add a positive emotional tone that’s considered by your specific reader to be socially appropriate.
Best email sign-offs for professionals
Best
All the best
Best wishes
Best regards
Sincerely
Respectfully
Regards
Warm regards
Kind regards
Thank you
Thank you in advance
Common casual email sign offs
Talk again soon
See you soon
Glad to help
Thanks
Thanks for your help
Thanks in advance
Best
Have a great day
Take care
Keep me posted
I’ll keep you posted
Not sick
Keep safe and healthy
Hope you and your family are safe and healthy during these unpredictable times
Hope you’re making it through this pandemic
Stay safe
Stay positive
Be well!
Have a socially distant [day, week]
Take care, we’ll get through this
Let’s hope for the best
Hope things will improve soon
Sick
Get well soon
Hope you feel better soon
Hang in there
Be well
Take it one day at a time
Take it easy
Hope you have a quick and easy recovery
Wishing you a speedy recovery
Our thoughts are with you
Our prayers are with you
The best email sign offs do 3 things:
Your sign off right can be hugely influential on how your reader perceives you. According to behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman the end of an experience strongly determines the way we go on to remember that experience. Take this into account, when you decide what sign off to use to end any important email.
That said, if the email is not so important, if it’s just another email, a short message, or one message in a long string, your sign off may not be so influential, and it may even go unnoticed. In that case you could simply skip a sign off altogether and go about your day with a sound mind.
The bottom line is that you know better than anyone what the right sign off is for a given action. But this does not mean that you’re left only with your gut feeling to work with. We have an easy and straightforward technique to help you know what’s right. Let’s jump right in.
let’s consider the following example:
I wrote an email to my manager requesting a raise. In my email I spelled out my accomplishments, my contribution to the team, and my dedication to the company.
In this case, I should go for a formal sign-off that refers to my request and conveys my feelings of dedication. I’ll end my sign-off with my name for a personal emphasis, and since my manager knows me I’ll use only my first name so that I won’t come across as emotionally distant and overly formal.
Please consider my request, with dedication,
John
All the best email sign-offs are general, friendly but slightly formal sign-offs; like “best regards” or “all the best”. If you expect to see or meet the recipient in the near future then you can end your email with “I look forward to speaking with you” or “I look forward to meeting you”.
YouGov conducted a survey asking 1,000 adults what their preferred email sign-off was. Respondents were allowed to report more than one answer (the survey page has meanwhile gone down so we have no link, sorry).
These survey results can tell us a bit about what sign-offs are most commonly used but not much about how these sign-offs are received; whether they produce positive or negative sentiment.
This being the case I would treat these stats as widely considered safe options, and not as any form of hard fact or best practice guidelines.
To make sure you’re not using an annoying sign-off, see this article that details the YouGov survey answers on what sign-offs have a bad rep.
The most commonly reported sign-offs in the YouGov poll were:
Email sign-offs are an essential component of email overall, though they have expanded and adapted to other platforms as well. All the best email sign-offs set the final impression of the message and seal the tone. Without them, your email may fall flat.
As mentioned, your choice of email sign-off completes the impression someone gets reading your email. That means not giving it any thought can change the whole impression the client or your boss gets while reading. Talk about not finishing with a bang.
Your email sign-off matters as the cherry on top. It helps people learn a little about you and how you view them while also offering you another opportunity to reinforce the relationship. Those impressions determine whether you get what you are looking for, which is why applying the etiquette experts like Susie teach is essential.
When signing off an email with multiple names, such as co-workers or corporate members. The person who is writing the email will put their name and team name or they will mention the title of the person who ranks higher in the organization for example:
Simply scroll down to the section that fits your specific needs.
Formal sign-offs are used for closing an email when communicating with someone in a professional or interest-based setting. Even if you know each other it’s best to remain formal when you are not equal in authority, rank, or social standing.
There are many kinds of formal sign-offs depending on the special circumstances for which they are used. Just click any of the jump links in the list below to get to where you need.
The correct sign-off etiquette in business or work can change widely depending on the situation and social context. Like all social interactions, try to say what you mean without being too blunt, pushy, or distant, or it may come off as awkward.
To help you find what you need, we broke down your formal business sign-off options based on the type of relationship between you and your recipient.
If your company has a casual social atmosphere, as is often the case with small family companies or young startups, then making a unique informal business sign-off may be more suitable for you.
This type of sign-off can be fairly casual, but it depends on the atmosphere in your workplace and the specific colleague you’re writing to. Between peers, It’s easy to be weirdly formal but just as easy to be too warm to make some people uncomfortable. The best approach is to go with your gut.
An email sign-off for job seekers should be sincere and assertive but polite. You do not want to look needy nor do you want to look pushy.
If you want more confidence that you’re making the right choice when you send your next job application email – take a look at this deeper guide for job seeker sign-offs.
An academic email sign-off is one of the easiest to pull off. The most common placed sign-offs are the most appropriate. The most used sign-offs may very well have been established in the context of academic correspondence in university, college or research centers.
A student’s sign-off when emailing her professor should be formal and respectful.
A professor’s sign-off when emailing her student should be formal but can establish a softer, warmer connotation.
V/R or Very respectfully are formal email sign-offs used in the military and may also be appropriate for government officials and clergy. These sign-offs are too formal for most email communications. They should be reserved for addressing an authoritative figure in a hierarchical organization or community.
Informal email sign-offs are practically endless. There is no conversion that bounds you to a setlist of proper ways with which to end your email. Still, you should be mindful that you’re not crossing the line from friendly and playful into awkward or even offensive.
There are many kinds of informal sign-offs. The correct informal sign-off to use depends on how close you are with the person you’re emailing as well as the email topic. To get to what you specifically need just click any of the jump links in the list below.
Casual email sign-offs are used to send an email between people that are well acquainted with one another. The deciding factor of whether to use a casual (rather than formal) email sign-off is if the person you are addressing knows you and sees you as a person beyond your job title.
Sometimes you may feel closer to someone more than they feel about you. Be sure to take your recipient’s perspective of your relationship rather than your own.
Truly for this one you don’t need our help. Between friends, any sign-off will do, and even no sign-off at all. Make it as weird as you like, just say sorry later 🙂
A unique sign-off approach is best used for informal business sign-offs. A unique sign-off is simply one that addresses your email’s main concern and finetunes its emotional tone to what you want to convey. Just be sure to keep it socially appropriate.
In a perfect world, you’d make a unique sign-off for all your emails. Uniqueness doesn’t mean writing something witty that’s never been read before – it means writing a sign-off that’s meaningful to your reader. For starters, you can play with some of our more conservative templates below.
Complete any of the following template options:
It’s never a bad idea to make people smile. Funny sign-offs can do just that for whoever it is that’s reading your email. Just remember that sign-offs work well when they are attuned to the right social context. So, it’s best to keep the jokes and laughs for people that feel very familiar with you.
Check out this awesome page for lots more funny sign-offs
Emotions email sign-offs are email endings that pass an emotional tone directly, or ever so subtly (most often positive wishes or attitude). Emotional sign-offs come mainly in informal forms but some are considered formal; such as “Warm wishes” or “Kind regards”.
“Thank you” email sign offs are naturally used at the end of an email message to thank your recipient for something they did. Thankful sign-offs are best used when you are actually thanking your email recipient for something specific.
Religious sign-offs are mostly holiday greetings. For most people living in the US, a ‘Happy holiday’ greeting will suffice. But if you want to get more specific you can end your email with the actual holiday name, e.g. ‘Happy Hanukkah’ or ‘Happy New Year’.
Other kinds of religious sign-offs are accepted daily greetings within a religion or a culture. Such as ‘God bless’ in some Christian communities, ‘Shalom aleichem in some Jewish communities, and ‘as-salamu alayka’ in some Muslim communities.
Depending on the occasion, some religious sign-offs are more spiritual in nature and are mostly used between believers of the same faith. Make sure you’re not giving the impression that you’re part of the faith when you’re actually not, or you risk offending your recipient.
