The 30 Worst Email Greetings And Sign-Offs To Avoid At Work

Warning: The way you start and finish your work emails directly affects how your message is received.

Worse, your recipients may perceive your go-to greeting and sign-off choices as overly aggressive, uptight, or casual.

In a recent survey, Preply asked 1,005 Americans between 18 to 76 years old about their habits and thoughts on email greetings and sign-offs.

Among the key findings? Almost everyone surveyed (91%) said the people they work with are sometimes passive-aggressive over email. And nearly half (46%) of people said they could tell a coworker’s mood based on their greetings and sign-offs.

This tracks with survey results showing around two-thirds of us (67%) don’t think about how we begin and end our emails. So before you blindly shoot off another work message, it pays to be intentional with your email greeting and sign-off choices.

Email greetings and sign-offs to avoid

The survey found that when it comes to emails, the most aggressive way to open or close an email was with no greeting or sign-off at all. Among the other no-nos:

The top 5 most aggressive email greetings:

1. (No greeting)
2. Hiya,
3. (name):
4. Hiya (name),
5. (name),

The top 5 most uptight email greetings:

1. Dear (name),
2. Greetings (name),
3. Greetings,
4. (name):
5. (No greeting)

The top 5 most casual email greetings:

1. Hiya,
2. Hey,
3. Hiya (name),
4. Hey (name),
5. Hi,

The top 5 most aggressive email sign-offs:

1. (No sign-off)
2. (Just sign your name)
3. Thanks in advance,
4. Respectfully,
5. Cheers,

The top 5 most uptight email sign-offs:

1. Respectfully,
2. Kind regards,
3. Sincerely,
4. (No sign-off)
5. Regards,

The top 5 most casual email sign-offs:

1. Thanks,
2. Cheers,
3. Talk soon,
4. Take care,
5. (Just sign your name)

Popular versus preferred email greetings and sign-offs

Good news: the survey found that the most popular email greeting — “Hi (name)”— is the one most people (29%) prefer, with “good morning/afternoon/evening (name),” a distant second at 13%. And when addressing multiple people in a group email, 52% of respondents preferred “(Greeting) everyone,” over other choices like “(Greeting) all,” “(Greeting) team,” “(Greeting) guys,” “(Greeting) y’all,” or “(Greeting) gang,”.

The two most used email sign-offs also emerged as the top two preferred options. Leading the list was “Thank you,” at 38%, followed by “Thanks” at 30%. The one deviation was “Thanks in advance,” which ranked last (5%) in the list of preferred sign-offs, even though it was the fourth most commonly used at 41%.

And interestingly, 76% of respondents say the email greeting is more important than the sign-off.

The ten most common email greetings:

1. Hi (name),
2. Good morning/afternoon/evening (name),
3. Good morning/afternoon/evening,
4. Hello (name),
5. Hi,
6. Hello,
7. (name),
8. Hey (name),
9. Dear (name),
10. Hey,

The ten most common email sign-offs:

1. Thank you,
2. Thanks,
3. (Just sign your name)
4. Thanks in advance,
5. Sincerely,
6. Regards,
7. Respectfully,
8. Best,
9. Take care,
10. Kind regards,

Other elements to remove from your emails

Aside from your greetings and sign-offs, other email preferences emerged. Survey respondents were nearly split on emoji use, with 42% of people saying they’re never appropriate in work emails and 58% believing they’re sometimes okay.

Similarly, nearly half (48%) of respondents regularly re-read their emails and removed exclamation points, while 25% re-read emails and added them.

One preference area where most respondents agreed was eliminating email-origin messages. An overwhelming majority (65%) want people to stop using “Sent from my phone, please excuse typos.” And more than half (51%) say to stop using “Sent from iPhone” or similar.

Surprisingly, there’s something else most people think should disappear after the initial email: your greeting and sign-off. As the email thread continues, 32% thought they should go away immediately, and 27% believed they should gradually fade away.

The next time you fire off an email to a coworker, be mindful of how your greeting and sign-off might be perceived. When in doubt, keep it simple, opening with “Hi (name)” and closing with “Thank you,” and go easy on the emojis and exclamation point usage.