All the best meaning: good luck, and goodbye

The wish behind the phrase

All the best is a sentence with the front cut off. The full version wishes someone all the best of luck, or all the best with whatever comes next. Dictionaries record it as a goodbye, and as the close of a letter to someone you know well.

How well you know them sets its range. All the best suits a colleague you like or a client you’ve worked with for years. On a first email to a stranger it’s slightly odd, because you haven’t known them long enough to wish them luck. Out loud, you attach what you’re wishing them well with. “All the best with the new job” is a complete sentence at a leaving do, and nobody expects a longer one.

All the best against best regards

Best regards wishes you well today. All the best wishes you well from here on, which is why it lands so often on goodbyes. Warm regards is close in feeling, but it doesn’t hint at an ending. Cheers is the casual cousin for the same people, and regards is the one you’d send the supplier. The rest of the family, stiff to chatty, has pages in the jargon dictionary.

Best wishes sits next to it and means nearly the same. The quiet part, that something difficult is coming, belongs to best of luck.

The last email before you go

Anyone leaving a job sends the team a goodbye email, and that’s where the phrase earns its keep. “All the best, and thanks for the cake” is a complete farewell in one line.

The leaving email has a few fixed parts: the date, a thank-you, where the handover notes live, and a personal address for anyone who wants to stay in touch. All the best goes at the bottom, above a first name and nothing else.

Send it in the afternoon of the last day, after the handover and before the drinks. Sent at 9 am, it invites six hours of replies you’ll feel obliged to read.

Seventh in the friendliness vote

UK workers rank all the best seventh of ten friendliest sign-offs. That’s one place behind warm regards and two ahead of best regards. The goodbye with good luck in it beat the everyday default.

The Navy’s choice for everyone else

The US Navy’s correspondence manual lists closings for personal letters from its headquarters. Senior flag officers get very respectfully, the long form of V/R. Condolence notes get warm regards, and senators get “sincerely yours”. At the bottom of the list, sincerely or all the best covers “all others”.

A manual that sorts its sign-offs by seniority keeps all the best for everyone it hasn’t ranked.

The goodbye nobody announced

A sudden all the best can be news between people who write every week. It closes the last email from a supplier who lost the contract, usually above a line about future opportunities. The colleague whose leaving date nobody has mentioned yet sends it too. When “speak soon” turns into all the best, check whether the reorg has started without you.

All the best to a client

Account managers use it on the email that hands a client to a colleague. All the best, and here is Sam, who will be looking after you from Monday. The client reads it twice to work out who got the blame.

All the best at the end of a long thread

It also closes a thread for good. After forty replies about who owns the shared drive, “All the best” means the writer has stopped arguing and won’t be replying again. It’s the polite form of putting the phone down.

All the best on a rejection

Hiring teams lean on it too. The rejection email ends by wishing you all the best in your search, which is the warmest sentence in the email and the one telling you to look elsewhere.

All the best in a leaving card

On a card it’s the safe line for someone you barely know. Twelve people write all the best, two write something funny, and one writes “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do”. The card goes in a drawer either way.

Dana’s last-day email

Subject: Last day

Hi all, today is my last day in the London office. Thank you for six years of help, cake and patience with my spreadsheets. The handover notes are in the shared drive under “Leaving”.

All the best Good luck with my spreadsheets, Dana