An estimated 8.32 billion emails are sent every day in the UK and it is scarcely surprising that as this mode of communication has become ever more widely used, a myriad ways of opening and closing emails have developed. The strict rules of letter-writing etiquette do not really apply to emails, but nevertheless it is sensible to follow these guidelines to ensure that you don’t cause offence or insult your recipients because you are over-familiar or over-formal:

Salutations

Old School

These salutations are direct descendants from traditional letter-writing practice. The email is opened with ‘Dear’ followed by the name, and it is up to the writer to decide the level of punctiliousness required. It is increasingly common, even in the professional and business worlds, to use the forename if the recipient is known to you. If the email relates to a formal business transaction with, for example, a solicitor, accountant or insurance broker, you might feel that the occasion demands the more old-fashioned use of ‘Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms’.

Where the name of the recipient is unknown and you are writing a business email, it is quite appropriate to default to the old-fashioned ‘Dear Sir or Madam’, although ideally you would try and find out the name before writing.

If in doubt, revert to traditional convention, and if you are in receipt of a formal email echo the salutation. If you feel the use of the surname is ridiculously stiff, you can always opt for the ‘Dear John (if I may)’ formulation.

‘Dear’ is by far the most common salutation; most people use it for business and social communications, but there are a growing number of other greetings that are being deployed to convey relaxed informality, friendliness, inclusivity.

Laid-back

The use of ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ followed by the forename is growing in popularity and is used amongst friends and, increasingly, business colleagues. In the latter context it is fine for day-to-day communications, but it would seem a bit incongruous if your email was about something serious or important, eg a request for a pay rise, a notification of redundancy, a customer complaint. You have to accept that ‘Hi’ sounds familiar and breezy, and only use it in circumstances where this is what you want to convey.

‘Hi’ is gradually mutating to ‘Hey’ in some circles. This is clearly intended to sound cool, which is fine amongst friends, but often not ideal in other professional contexts. Starting an email with ‘Hey there!’ implies that you do not actually know the name of the recipient but you think you’ll get away with it by sounding easy-going.

Generic

Some people are trying to avoid the whole salutation dilemma by coming up with generic openers (no names included), such as ‘Greetings’. While this sounds perfectly friendly, it seems to indicate that the writer does not know the name of the recipient or is sending the email to an extensive list of names. This depersonalisation inevitably makes the email feel like a circular or piece of marketing material.

Abrupt

People who want to look busy and important often strip down the salutation. They might just use ‘Hi’ with no name to follow; alternatively, they might just preface the email with a forename and no salutation, or even dispense with the salutation altogether. In all these cases, the effect is to sound rude and peremptory.

Signoffs

Old School

If you are writing a formal business email, which is effectively a digital version of a traditional letter, then you should follow well-established etiquette practice. A salutation of ‘Dear Sir’ is matched with ‘yours faithfully’ and a salutation of ‘Dear Mr Rivers/Ms Emerson’ is matched with ‘yours sincerely’. It should be noted that this is at the most formal and decorous end of the spectrum for email formatting and nowadays would tend to be used for official business.

As with greetings, the safest bet is to match the tone and formality of emails you have received – becoming informal too quickly might seem overly casual. If you are initiating a correspondence with a business contact and you have never met, it would probably be safest to default to these more formal sign-offs, especially if the person you are writing to is more senior.

All Good Wishes

Most of us use signoffs that fall into this category, which ends the email on a warm and positive note. At the formal end of the spectrum are signoffs that use the word ‘regards’. The OED cites the first use of the phrase ‘kind regards’ to 1810, by the poet Robert Southey, although the etymology of the word ‘regards’ (from the French,, regarder) dates back to the mid 14th century when it was used to mean a ‘consideration’ or ‘judgement’. This long-established valediction is quite ceremonious. If you ask someone to ‘send my regards’, it is a considerably more formal request than ‘send my love’. So the email signoff is somewhat mitigated by the use of words like ‘kind’, ‘best’ or ‘warmest’.

A more casual version of this kind of signoff is ‘best wishes’, which is bland and neutral and not likely to cause offence.

With Gratitude

Emails can be rather blunt and unadorned, so it is not surprising that some people choose to soften this edge by choosing grateful sounding signoffs. Inevitably, these are only applicable if the email exchange has involved a request or acknowledgement of a favour. It might be diplomatic, if you’re asking someone to do you a favour, to sign off with a ‘Many thanks’.

Reserve these signoffs for situations where a successful transaction is sought or has taken place; signing off with ‘many thanks’ when you are, for example, nagging someone will come across as passive-aggressive, eg “Have you had time to finish that report I requested last week? Many thanks….”  ‘With gratitude’ is at the most grateful end of the spectrum and should only be used if you’re feeling genuinely effusive, otherwise it sounds creepily beholden.

Too Busy to Bother

Abbreviated signoffs like KR and BW are passive-aggressive. Is it really too much effort to write out ‘Kind regards’ or ‘Best wishes’? By abbreviating these short phrases, you are indicating that you are too busy or important to bother with the mundane business of signing off your email politely.

Not signing off at all is just rude, unless you know your correspondent really well – you are reverting to a texting style (with no salutation or sign-off), whereas an email should be treated as a quasi-letter.

Super-Informal

Breezy or affectionate signoffs like ‘Cheers’, ‘Have a good weekend!’, ‘Byee!’, ‘love’ are friendly and cheerful and are certainly fine for close colleagues or friends. Most people will respond positively to an informal sign-off, the only risk of using them is if you are communicating professionally with someone who is senior to you. Be careful about using them in professional email threads, especially if the correspondence is being reviewed by a manager, who may frown upon your informality, or find it a little presumptuous. ‘Cheers’ is upbeat and casual, and as such would sound somewhat cloth-eared if you were writing an email that conveyed bad news. Only use this signoff if you want to sound positive and friendly.

If you’re really close to someone, you might dispense with signoffs altogether, just adding your name or even your initial. Signing off with a kiss (x) is fine in certain contexts and with certain people, but it is not the norm in office communications, and it is probably best to think twice if you’re a compulsive email kisser. Not signing off at all turns the email into a text format and looks troublingly abrupt.