Email signatures with social media icons
A row of small icons tells people where else they can find you, without spelling out long profile addresses. Done well, it takes one line. Done badly, it's a strip of logos nobody clicks. Here is what works, with live examples you can open in the generator.
The same signature three ways: color, gray and text
Fairsig offers three styles for social links. The previews below are the same signature, changed only in that setting. Each “Use this signature” button opens the generator with that style already selected.
Color icons
 | Nadia Farouk Host & Producer The Long Lunch Podcast     |
| Made with Fairsig | |
The networks' colors are recognisable at a glance. Best when the accounts are part of your work, as they are for a podcast.
Gray icons
| Nadia Farouk Host & Producer The Long Lunch Podcast     |
| Made with Fairsig | |
Gray icons are quieter and don't compete with your accent color or logo. They also look consistent in dark mode.
Text links
| Nadia Farouk Host & Producer The Long Lunch Podcast |
| Made with Fairsig | |
Text links are never blocked, never blurry and read well with a screen reader. The most robust choice for formal or internal email.
Which networks to include
Two or three is enough for most people; four is about the limit before the row starts to look like a toolbar. Choose by asking what the reader of this email would click:
- LinkedIn for most business roles: it's where clients, recruiters and partners check who you are.
- GitHub for developers, where your work is the profile.
- Instagram, YouTube or TikTok for visual and creative work, consumer brands and creators.
- Facebook for local businesses, community groups and nonprofits whose events live there.
- X if you are active there and it's relevant to the people you email.
Leave out accounts you haven't posted on for months: an icon that leads to a dormant profile does more harm than no icon. Fairsig supports LinkedIn, X, GitHub, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok.
Icon size
Social icons should be smaller than your name and roughly the height of a line of text, about 20–24 pixels square. Upload or host the file at twice the display size, so it's sharp on phones and high-resolution laptop screens, and set the display size in the HTML. Fairsig's icons are 40 × 40 px PNG files shown at 20 × 20 px, with the width and height written into each image tag; mail apps that ignore CSS still get the right size. More dimensions are on the signature size page.
Avoid SVG icons: Gmail doesn't display SVG images. PNG is the safe format for small icons with transparency.
Color or gray?
There is no rule, only fit. Color icons draw the eye, so they suit people whose social accounts are part of the job. Gray icons work better next to a logo or a strong accent color, and in signatures that should look calm: lawyers, engineers, finance. If your brand color is strong, gray icons stop the signature from looking like a patchwork.
Product designer with pronouns
 | Sam Okafor (they/them) Senior Product Designer Tidewater Health |
| Made with Fairsig | |
The website doubles as a portfolio link, and the pronouns sit quietly next to the name. Two color icons are enough: more would compete with the work itself.
Startup founder
| Noah Brooks Co-founder & CEO · Fernleaf |
| [email protected] fernleaf.example |
 |
| Made with Fairsig |
Founders send a lot of short emails to investors and early customers. A text-first signature with two gray icons looks deliberate rather than corporate.
Accessibility: alt text and link names
When an image is the only thing inside a link, its alt text is the name of the link. A screen reader announces it, and it's what appears in place of the icon when images are blocked. The W3C's images tutorial says the text alternative for such an image should convey the action or destination, not describe the picture.
- Good:
alt="LinkedIn". Better if you have room for it in your own HTML:alt="Sam Okafor on LinkedIn". - Not useful:
alt="icon",alt="blue square logo", or an empty alt on a linked icon.
Every icon Fairsig generates carries the network's name as alt text, for example alt="LinkedIn", so the link still makes sense with images off. Text links are the most accessible option of all.
When images are blocked
Many mail apps, and many company mail systems, don't load remote images until the reader allows it. Your icons then show as small empty boxes or as their alt text. That's why a signature should never put essential information only in an image: your name, phone and email stay as text in every Fairsig template, and icons are an extra.
Software engineer, minimal
| Lena Fischer Staff Software Engineer, Platform team · Corvid Labs |
| [email protected] |
 |
| Made with Fairsig |
Two gray icons for the two profiles colleagues actually look up. If images are blocked, the signature loses nothing important.
Where the icons come from
Fairsig's icons are simple drawings of each network's mark, hosted on fairsig.com as small PNG files and linked by https address. Nothing is attached to your email, and the files add very little to your signature's length against Gmail's 10,000-character limit. Hosting images on a public https address is also the only way they display reliably for recipients; see the Gmail and Outlook guides for how to paste them in.
Questions
What size should social media icons be in an email signature?
Display them at about 20–24 px square, with the image file at twice that size (40–48 px) so they stay sharp on high-resolution screens. Fairsig's icons are 40 px files shown at 20 px.
Why don't my social icons show up for some people?
Icons are images loaded from the internet, and many mail apps hold back remote images until the reader allows them. The links still work, but the reader may see empty boxes or the alt text instead. If that matters to you, use text links: they always show.
Should I link my personal or my company accounts?
Link the accounts that help the person reading your email. In a sales or support role that is usually the company's pages; for a freelancer or a creator it is your own profile. Never link an account you wouldn't want a client to scroll through.
Can I use icons in Gmail and Outlook?
Yes. Small linked PNG images work in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. Avoid SVG icons (Gmail doesn't display SVG images) and icons embedded in the signature as attachments.
Sources
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, Images tutorial: functional images (checked October 2026). Image sizes and formats as used by Fairsig's own templates.
Ready? The free Fairsig generator builds a signature that works in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail, in your browser, with no sign-up. Add icons to your signature →