Every staff member of the Aix-Marseille academy has an institutional email address in the format [email protected]. The signature associated with this academic email remains the first element that your correspondents read after your message. If poorly configured or absent, it obscures the identification of the sender and slows down the processing of emails by secretariats, inspections, or external partners.
Cybersecurity and academic email signature: what the charters now require
Competitors describe the technical manipulation, but none address the preceding question: what information to include in the signature, and what to exclude. National cybersecurity guidelines require public organizations to limit data that facilitates social engineering in electronic communications. Direct line number, precise job title, personal contact details: all elements that can be exploited by an attacker to legitimize a targeted phishing email.
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Since 2024-2025, the information systems departments of public institutions (universities, academies) are integrating these recommendations into their email charters. The trend is to simplify signatures and limit data exploitable by attackers. Before drafting your signature, check if your institution has published an updated internal communication guide.
It is now possible to configure the Aix-Marseille professional email while considering these security constraints, which avoids having to modify the signature afterward when an internal directive is issued.
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Accessing signature settings on Aix-Marseille webmail
The Aix-Marseille academic email operates via a webmail accessible from any browser. Access to signature settings is through the Options menu, then the Local Account section. It is in this space that you write the block of text that will be automatically inserted under each new message.
Two settings to remember after entering:
- Check the box “Add signature to each composed message” so that insertion is automatic, including in replies and forwards.
- Click “Save preferences” before leaving the page, otherwise the signature will not be saved.
- Check the rendering by sending yourself a test email, as HTML formatting may vary depending on the receiving client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail).
The academic webmail supports basic formatting (bold, italic, color), but not the direct integration of logos as embedded attachments. If you paste an image from an external editor, it may display as an attachment rather than inline with the recipient.
Content of a professional signature: what is useful and what is clutter
An effective academic signature fits within four to six lines. Beyond that, it burdens each exchange without providing useful information. The minimal block contains the first name and last name, the position held, the name of the school or institution, and the institutional email address.
Adding your school’s name facilitates identification by district services, a point that the official documentation of the Aix-Marseille academy explicitly mentions. However, the personal mobile phone number has no place in an institutional signature. If a contact number is necessary, prefer the institution’s main line.
For teachers who work across multiple sites, the question arises of creating multiple signatures. The academic webmail only manages one signature per account. The workaround is to write a generic block mentioning the academy and the subject, without attachment to a single institution, or to manually modify the signature according to the context.
Should links or a logo be added to the signature?
A link to the institution’s website may be justified for a head of institution or a digital referent. For a teacher primarily in contact with colleagues and families, an additional link in the signature rarely adds value. Academic graphic charters, when they exist, recommend not inserting a personal logo or promotional banner.
Field feedback varies on this point: some districts encourage adding the academic logo to strengthen visual identity, while others advise against it for reasons of message weight and compatibility between email clients.
Synchronizing the signature with an IMAP email client on smartphone or computer
The signature configured on the webmail does not automatically propagate to an external email client. If you check your academic emails via Thunderbird, Outlook, or the Mail app on an iPhone, the signature must be recreated in the settings of each application.
The IMAP connection settings for the Aix-Marseille academy use the STARTTLS protocol. The information to be entered includes the IMAP server, the associated port, and your full academic identifier ([email protected]). The SMTP configuration follows the same logic for sending.
On a mobile device, the signature is set in the mail account settings, under “Signature.” Each application manages formatting differently:
- The iOS Mail app allows a rich text signature, but only via copy-pasting from a formatted email.
- Thunderbird on computer offers an integrated HTML editor in the account settings, providing precise control over the rendering.
- Outlook (desktop and mobile versions) has a dedicated signature editor, accessible via File then Options, with real-time preview.
Since redirects from academic email to personal inboxes are no longer allowed for security reasons, properly configuring your email client with the correct signature remains the only option to work from your usual device without losing the professional identity of your messages.
The key point to remember: the professional signature on Aix-Marseille email is configured in two distinct places if you use both webmail and an external client. Neglecting either creates an inconsistency visible to your correspondents from the first exchange.