Email Format: How to Format a Professional Email

A professional email format has six parts, in this order: subject line, greeting, opening line, body, closing line and sign-off. Each part does one job, so the reader knows what you need before they scroll.

The example below is invented: a small catering company asking a linen hire firm for a quote. The same order works for a reply to a customer or a note to a supplier.

Professional email format, with an example

Here is the full email, ready to copy and change. Everything in square brackets is yours to fill in.

Subject: Quote request: table linen for 120 guests, Saturday 5 December

Dear Ms [Surname],

I am writing to ask for a quote for table linen for an awards dinner
we are catering on Saturday 5 December.

We need:
- 15 white round tablecloths for tables of eight
- 120 white napkins
- delivery to the venue by 10am on Friday 4 December, and collection
  on Monday 7 December

I have attached the venue's floor plan (PDF, one page).

Could you send me a price by Friday 13 November? We confirm our
suppliers the following week.

Kind regards,

[First name] [Surname]
Events manager, Example Catering Ltd
[Phone number]

Part	Its job	In the example
Subject line	Names the topic and the detail the reader will search for later	The request, the guest count and the date
Greeting	Says who the email is for, at the right level of formality	Dear Ms [Surname],
Opening line	States the reason for the email	A quote for linen for one event
Body	Gives only what the reader needs to answer	Three items and one attachment
Closing line	Asks for one action, with a deadline	A price by Friday 13 November
Sign-off and name	Ends politely and shows who wrote	Kind regards, then name, role and company

In a business email, the subject line doubles as a search term, so include the order number, invoice number or date.

How to start an email: greetings in UK business email

Start with "Dear" and the person's name for a first or formal email. Once you are on first-name terms, "Hi" or "Hello" with their first name is fine.

The British Council's business English course lists "Dear Tim," for formal and informal email alike, and "Hi Tim," as informal only (LearnEnglish).

Greeting	When to use it
Dear Ms [Surname],	First contact, a complaint, a job application, anyone senior you have not met
Dear Sir or Madam,	You have looked and cannot find a name
Dear [First name],	A customer or supplier you know, in a polite tone
Hi [First name], or Hello [First name],	People you write to often

British English puts a comma after the greeting and no full stop after the title: "Dear Mr Jackson,". The University of Sussex punctuation guide gives "Dear Mr. Jackson:" as the American business form.

Use Ms for a woman without another title, unless she has said she prefers Mrs or Miss. The GOV.UK style guide uses the same rule when it names people. If someone signs their emails as Dr, use Dr.

Before you fall back on "Dear Sir or Madam", look for a name on the company website.

A shared inbox such as accounts@ reads better with a team name: "Dear Accounts team,". Once someone replies, follow their lead: if they sign with their first name only, use it next time.

The opening line: say why you are writing

The first sentence after the greeting tells the reader why you are writing. They then read the details knowing what they are for.

Situation	Opening line
A request to a supplier	"I am writing to ask for a quote for table linen for 5 December."
A reply to a customer	"Thank you for your email of 3 November about the delivery time."
A first email to someone you have not met	"Your colleague in purchasing suggested I contact you about our linen order."

"I hope you are well" is a friendly start with someone you know. Put the reason straight after it, because Gmail and Outlook show the first words of the body in the inbox list.

The email body: one screen, one request

Keep the body short enough to fit on a phone screen without scrolling, and make one request. A second topic gets its own email and subject line, so each one can go to the right person.

• Paragraphs: one to three sentences, with a blank line between them.
• Lists: bullets for three or more items, such as quantities or questions; numbers when the order matters.
• Dates: "Saturday 5 December", with no "5th". Avoid "05/12": a reader in the United States takes it as 12 May.
• Times: "10am", "2:30pm" and "10am to 2pm". GOV.UK writes dates and times the same way.

The example body is 78 words long. If yours runs past one screen, move the detail into an attachment and keep the request in the email.

The closing line: ask for one thing, with a date

The last sentence before your sign-off says what you need from the reader and by when. A question with a date is easier to answer than an open invitation.

Instead of	Write
"Let me know your thoughts."	"Could you send me a price by Friday 13 November?"
"Any questions, just ask."	"If the delivery time does not suit you, could you suggest another by Wednesday?"

A reason makes the date believable. "We confirm our suppliers the following week" tells the linen firm why Friday counts.

If the date passes with no answer, send a follow-up email in the same thread rather than starting again.

How to end an email: Yours sincerely, Yours faithfully or Kind regards

End with "Yours sincerely" when you greeted the person by name, and "Yours faithfully" when you began with "Dear Sir or Madam". The National Careers Service gives this rule for cover letters, and it carries over to formal email.

An optional postscript (PS) sits after your sign-off. Keep a request or deadline in the body if the reader must act on it.

Everyday business email rarely needs either. The British Council course keeps both for formal email and lists "Regards," and "With best wishes," as suitable for any email. The quote request above opens with "Dear Ms [Surname]," and still ends with "Kind regards,". The University of Sussex guide calls the sincerely and faithfully distinction "anything but crucial".

Sign-off	Tone	Use it for
Yours sincerely,	Formal	A named reader: job applications, complaints, formal notices
Yours faithfully,	Formal	A reader you cannot name
Kind regards,	Polite and neutral	Most email to customers and suppliers
Best wishes,	Warm	People you already know
Many thanks,	Grateful	An email that asks for help or a favour
Cheers,	Casual	Colleagues and close contacts only

American business letters use a form of "sincerely" for every reader, so American templates often leave out "Yours faithfully". Cambridge Dictionary marks the phrase as mainly UK.

Put a comma after the sign-off and a capital on its first word only: "Kind regards," not "Kind Regards,". Then write your first name for people you know, or your full name for everyone else.

Your role, company and phone number go in the email signature underneath, with the company details UK law asks a limited company to show.

Attachments and links in a professional email

Mention every attachment in the body and say what it is: "I have attached the venue's floor plan (PDF, one page)." The reader then knows to look for it.

Name the file for the reader, not for your computer: venue-floor-plan-5-December.pdf tells them more than scan0042.pdf. Send a PDF when the reader only needs to read the document, and the Word or Excel file when they need to change it.

Email service	Attachment limit (25 October 2026)	Above the limit
Gmail, personal account	25 megabytes (MB) for all attachments together	Gmail replaces the file with a Google Drive link
Google Workspace work or school account	Set by your administrator	Ask whoever manages your email
Outlook.com	25 MB for the whole email, text included	Attach it as a OneDrive link, up to 2 gigabytes (GB) per file

The figures come from Gmail Help and Microsoft Support. A Drive or OneDrive link only works if the reader can open it, so check its sharing setting before you send.

Put links on words that say where they go, such as "the venue floor plan", rather than "click here". GOV.UK's guidance on link text asks for the same, and adds the file format and size when a link opens a document: "Application form (PDF, 19.5KB)".

Email format for a job application

A job application uses the same email format, and the email itself can be your cover letter. The National Careers Service says a cover letter can be an email when you apply online, usually 3 to 5 paragraphs long. That makes it the one email here allowed to run past a phone screen.

HTML or plain text: the email format setting in Outlook and Gmail

Outlook and Gmail both let you write in HTML (the code behind a formatted email) or plain text. HTML allows bold, lists, links and pictures; plain text works in every email program but has none of them. HTML is the default in new and classic Outlook (Microsoft Support).

Microsoft also notes that the reader's email program may convert an HTML message to plain text. So never let colour or bold alone carry a deadline: write the date in the sentence.

App	Where to change it
New Outlook for Windows	Settings > Mail > Compose and reply > Message format
Classic Outlook	File > Options > Mail > Compose messages in this format
Gmail on a computer	In a new message, More options > Plain text mode (Gmail Help)

Classic Outlook has a third option, Rich Text Format (RTF). Microsoft calls it a legacy format and recommends HTML. When an RTF message goes to someone outside your organisation, Outlook converts it to HTML.

Professional email address format

A professional email address sits on your business's own email domain, not a free webmail account, in a pattern people can guess: firstname@ or [email protected] for a person, and a role address such as accounts@ for a team. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, the authentication records that let receiving servers confirm the mail comes from you.

When you give the address in an email or signature, write it in full and in lower case, as GOV.UK does.

When one email goes to many customers

An announcement for every customer, such as new opening hours, reads best in a newsletter layout: one column, a heading and one button.

From your own inbox, that means writing it out many times or hiding a long list in Bcc, with the privacy risks that brings.

An email platform sends a separate copy to each person and can still greet them by name, the simplest form of email personalisation. In a MailGraf campaign, the First name tag fills in each greeting, with a default word for anyone without a name.