Funny email sign offs, from polite to unhinged
Forty-four sign-offs in four moods, each with what the person reading it hears.
Polite
Warmly
Room temperature.
Sign-offs
Funny email sign offs for work
- Thanks in advanceI've thanked you, so you've agreed to it.
- BestThe shortest thing I could type without looking rude.
- WarmlyRoom temperature.
- Looking forward to hearing from youI've set a reminder for Thursday.
- Let me know if you have any questionsPlease have no questions.
- Hope this helpsThat's all you're getting.
- Have a great weekendIt's Thursday and I've already left in my head.
- Thanks for your patienceSorry it took three weeks.
- Happy to helpHappy it's done. Please don't come back.
- Talk soonWe won't, and we both know it.
- Onwards and upwardsWe lost the client.
Passive-aggressive email sign offs
- As per my last emailYou didn't read it. Scroll down.
- Just circling backThis is day four.
- RegardsKind regards, with the kind taken out.
- Thanks againI've thanked you twice and you've done it zero times.
- Friendly reminderIt isn't friendly and it isn't the first.
- NotedSaved for your performance review.
- Hope that clarifiesIt was clear the first time.
- As discussedYou agreed on the call, and I took notes.
- Thanks for looping me inI don't know why I'm on this thread.
- Happy to discuss furtherThere is nothing further.
- Thanks for your prompt attention to thisYour boss is now in CC.
Unhinged email sign offs
- Sent from my bedIt's 2 pm on a Tuesday.
- Yours until the next reorgI've seen the new org chart.
- With love and a hard stop at 5I'll be gone at 4:58.
- Do not reply allSomebody will reply all.
- Surprised and disappointedNobody volunteered once the holiday pay went.
- Sincerely, still on muteI talked for ten minutes and nobody heard it.
- Love and synergyI've been on LinkedIn too long.
- Sent from my iPhone during the all-handsI did not listen to the all-hands.
- Yours, from the doorI'm leaving on the minute, as your last email asked.
- Please consider the environment before replying to this emailPlease don't reply.
- Yours in the trenchesThe trenches are a weekly sync.
British email sign offs
- CheersThanks and goodbye, in one word.
- Kind regardsI'm quietly furious.
- Many thanksOne thanks would have done.
- TaThanks, at half the length.
- Ta-raI'm already in the car park.
- All the bestI'm leaving the company.
- Have a good oneI've forgotten what day it is.
- Enjoy the sunshineIt's been sunny for one afternoon and the office is empty.
- Speak MondayDo not email me this weekend.
- Let's pick this up after the bank holidayNever.
- Apologies for the long emailI've read it back and I'm cutting nothing.
Surveys
The sign-offs people hate
The sign-off that annoys UK workers most is “Tara” or “tata”, at 27%. “Sent from my iPhone” follows at 25%. “May the Force be with you” and “To infinity and beyond” tie at 24%, and “Hasta la vista, baby” gets 23%. Even signing off with nothing at all makes the top ten.
Needless CCs annoy more of them than any sign-off does: 44%, ahead of long emails at 43% and “URGENT” on emails that aren’t urgent at 37%.
The sign-offs that get replies
The sign-off that thanks you for a favor you haven’t agreed to gets answered most often.
| Sign-off | Reply rate |
|---|---|
| Thanks in advance | 65.7% |
| Thanks | 63% |
| Thank you | 57.9% |
| Looking forward to hearing from you | 54.8% |
| Cheers | 54.2% |
| Regards | 53.4% |
| Best | 51.2% |
“Best”, the safe default, came last, 14.5 points behind “Thanks in advance”.
Phrases in a million real emails
Across a million-plus real emails, the top stock phrase is “Reaching out”, at 6,117, and circle back turns up 533 times. “Happy Friday” beats “Happy Monday” about three to one, 512 to 169. About 1 in 50 of the emails holds one of the corporate buzzwords on the count.
The phrase with the worst reputation, per my last email, is one of the rarest in real mail.
Email sign offs that stay professional
For an email that matters, go with what UK workers rate friendliest. “Have a great day”, “week” or “weekend” comes top, at 49%, followed by “Many thanks”, “Best wishes” and “Cheers”. “Kind regards” makes neither the friendliest ten nor the most annoying ten, which is the whole point of “Kind regards”. In the reply counts, all three thank-you sign-offs beat every sign-off without one.
Sign-offs for a tense email
A friendly opening and a friendly sign-off can hold almost anything between them. “Hi” at the top and “Kind regards” at the bottom, and the middle can be a formal complaint. HR reads the middle.
The email about leaving a few minutes early tends to close with “We’re a team”. Borrow it for the reply. The holiday rota memo that regrets a shortage of team players can have its own words back too: “Happy to be a team player at the old holiday rate. Kind regards.”
The envelope for the boss’s present gets the shortest email there is, “No”, with no sign-off at all. Signing off with nothing makes the UK’s most annoying ten, which suits the occasion.
Questions
How to end an email in a fun way?
Swap the stock closing for one line that fits the email you just wrote, then your name. A joke about the thread lands, and a random one reads like a typo. Keep it for people who already know you, and never after a complaint or bad news.
What are some unique email sign-offs?
Unique ones borrow a detail from the email itself: "Yours in spreadsheet solidarity" after a budget thread, or "Onward to the next reorg" after a new org chart. Nobody else could send the same one, which is why it gets remembered.
How to end an email snarky?
Thank them for something they haven't done yet: "Thanks in advance for the update by Friday" is polite on paper and pointed in practice. Keep the snark to that one line, because the body is the part that gets forwarded to HR.
What is the stay cool sign off?
"Stay cool" is a casual goodbye, closer to "take care" than to "regards". It suits a colleague you already joke with, and reads oddly in a first email to a client.