HubSpot signature will no longer work with Gmail

[TBM1992]

Hello,

I used the HubSpot free email signature template generator to create my signature. It worked perfectly for several months, and then one day, I decided I wanted to tweak it slightly. I went to upload the new signature into Gmail and I got an error message saying the signature is too long. I checked the source code and it's less than 9,000 characters; I understand the limit on Gmail to be 10,000, so what is going on? Why won't this work?

I've tried on Safari and Chrome. Both have had caches cleared and are up to date on the latest version.

I am attaching screenshots of the message and what the signature looks like in the generator.

Any help with this would be tremendous. I love the look of the signature so it's very frustrating that I can no longer use it.

I have tried this on iPad and MacBook. I even tried adding an HTML signature to Gmail, but it doesn't work as shown in the instructions provided by HubSpot.

[MiaSrebrnjak · Accepted solution]

Hi @TBM1992 , @Mais, @JKwa, and @DScavone, thank you for contributing to this thread! 

Our product team has investigated this behaviour and it seems Gmail is adding on extraneous code after you paste in a signature. This extra code is artificially inflating the amount of characters present and thus causing this error. 

While some users were able to paste the signature using a different browser (Edge, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox), there is also this workaround available which should work for Gmail users. 

I hope this helps!

Cheers
Mia, Community Team

[NGradica · Accepted solution]

Hi

I had the same problem, but I found a very easy workaround to get Gmail to work.

1. Create your Signature

2. Copy Source Code

3. Go to https://html-online.com/editor/

4. Paste your source code (see the screenshots)

5. Copy the new signature on the left-hand side

6. Paste the Signature to Gmail and Save

[TBM1992]

Hey everyone,

I eventually got the signature to work, and it has been fine for months, but for some reason, the image stopped working in the signature yesterday. I tried creating a new signature using the Free Email Signature Template, but the photo doesn't work there either.

Has anyone had this experience?

[rmichaels · Accepted solution]

Hey!

I had the same issue - I've spent the better part of the morning trying every tip highlighted in the thread. Surprise surprise - none worked, including changing the source code html on page. 

I did eventually crack it. Google seems to think the HTML is too long, even though my code was under 10k.

Here's how I did it:

1. Minify the code using this code minifier. Simply copy the HTML code from your Hubspot generated signature & paste into the minifier.

2. Copy the minified code & head on over to this code editor & displayer. 

3. Enter the code into the box on the left & click run.

4. In the box on the right, it will now preview the signature for you. Highlight the signature & copy it. 

5. Head on over back to Gmail signature editor & you should now be able to paste the signature in as normal.

This worked for me. The minifying of the code really seems to be what is the issue as I'm sure Google add on their own code, hope this helps! 

[kaanaro]

@rmichaels Thank you a lot! I could not find this info anywhere else and this worked like a magic!

[rmichaels]

Also - 

Third party mail apps will also accept the signatures. I love using Spark and have both my personal & work email on there - signatures are easy to set up and you can quickly assign a signature to multiple accounts instead of manually adding it to each email account in the app. 

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @rmichaels, thank you for sharing this workaround! 👍 

[MiaSrebrnjak · Accepted solution]

Hi @TBM1992 , @Mais, @JKwa, and @DScavone, thank you for contributing to this thread! 

Our product team has investigated this behaviour and it seems Gmail is adding on extraneous code after you paste in a signature. This extra code is artificially inflating the amount of characters present and thus causing this error. 

While some users were able to paste the signature using a different browser (Edge, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox), there is also this workaround available which should work for Gmail users. 

I hope this helps!

Cheers
Mia, Community Team

[GDeshaies]

Thank you, the fix work well?

Guy

[rmichaels]

If you have a look at my reply, the fix I recommended has worked great! And a lot simpler than messing with the code on page 🙂

[TBM1992]

Hello Mia,

Seeing this gets me excited! I've followed the steps but have had a problem early on. I need help locating the child div inside the aria-label Signature. I have no experience with coding, so perhaps I'm being silly, but can you see it in the attached image?

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @TBM1992, I apologize for the late reply! 

For me, the code also looks a bit different from the example in the article, but I've managed to add my signature by replacing this piece of code here 

with the code from the article like this: 

I removed both curly braces when I pasted the HTML code of my signature. After that I've clicked on an empty space somewhere on the page so the code updated. 

Looking at your screenshot, I'd say you can either paste the code in position 1 or 2. I'd test both to see what works best. 

I hope this helps!

Cheers
Mia, Community team

[BNicole]

Unfortuantely after I have followed all of these suggested methods over the past couple hours - Gmail seems to delete the entire signature after I hit save every time...

I have no idea what is going on there - i have tried in both chrome and safari. Any way you can double check and see if there is something new preventing for the hubspot signature generator to work? 😞 

[TBM1992]

Hey Mia,

My turn to apologise for the delay.

I've given your suggestions a go and after several attempts, I think I've finally got it to work! I'm so happy! Thank you so much for your patience and help.

Best,

Conor

[MiaSrebrnjak]

That's great @TBM1992! Thank you for letting me know! 🙂 

Have a wonderful rest of your week

Mia

[Mais]

Same issue for our company. Stuck with a minimal version of the signature without social buttons. Character count is below 7K.

[JKwa]

Hi! I ran into the same problem when I tried to copy my Hubspot signature onto Gmail.

1. Copy signature source code, paste onto Windows notepad

2. Click to the end of the source code to ensure that character count is below 10,000 char

3. If character count not below 10,000, shorten as many img source code web address using tiny url until char count is below 10,000

4. Add <!DOCTYPE html><hml> at the beginning of your source code and </html> at the end of source code

5. Ensure char count is below 10,000. You may use https://www.willpeavy.com/tools/minifier/ to further decrease char count.

6. Save file name as file.html and save file type as All files

7. Open file in Google Chrome by opening Google Chrome browser and pressing Ctrl + O

8. Highlight signature and paste in signature settings in Gmail.

Worked for me. Good luck!

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Thank you for sharing your workaround @JKwa!! This is very helpful! 

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Got it, thank you for going through the additional troubleshooting steps @TBM1992 & @DScavone! I wanted to let you know that our product team is currently investigating this issue. I'll update this thread as soon as there is new information available! 

Mia, Community team 

[TBM1992]

Thank you so much, Mia, for your support. Fingers crossed the team can sort it!

[TBM1992]

Hello Mia,

Thank you so much for your reply and for the suggestions. I tried both, but I'm afraid it hasn't made any difference as I still get the same message saying the signature is too long.

Regards,

Conor

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @TBM1992,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community!

I'm sorry to hear that you were not able to use the new signature. This is indeed unusual, as everything looks alright and your character count is below the 10,000 limit. 

Could you please try removing one of the social icons or changing the size of your image, as suggested in this Community article? I realize that this is not an ideal solution, but it could help us pinpoint the issue. 

Thank you!

Cheers
Mia, Community Team