PS in Email: How to Write a Postscript and When to Use One

A PS in email is a short note placed after your sign-off and name. The PS, short for postscript, holds one extra point that should stand apart from the message. A booking confirmation from a small upholstery workshop might end like this:

Kind regards,
[Name]
Example Upholstery

PS There is free parking in the yard behind the workshop.

What does PS mean?

PS stands for postscript, from the Latin postscriptum. Oxford traces it to postscribere, "write under, add", and dates the English word to the mid-16th century (Oxford Learner's Dictionaries).

On paper, a PS let the writer add a thought after signing without copying out the whole letter again. Email removes that reason, because you can scroll up and edit before you press Send.

That makes every PS in email a deliberate choice: the reader knows the point could have gone in the body.

How to write PS: UK spelling and punctuation

In British English, write PS with no full stops. Oxford and Cambridge both list it that way, while Cambridge's American dictionary gives P.S. (entries as of 25 October 2026).

The UK government's house style agrees: the GOV.UK style guide says not to use full stops in abbreviations.

After PS, leave a space or add a colon, then start the note with a capital letter.

Form	Use it for	Example
PS	Emails in British English	PS Enjoy the rest of your week.
PS:	British English, if you prefer a colon	PS: Thanks again for the quick reply.
P.S.	Emails in American English	P.S. Congratulations on the new office.

Pick one form and use it in every email your business sends, including the templates colleagues reuse.

Where the PS goes when Gmail or Outlook adds your signature

When your email program adds a signature for you, type the PS under it as the last line of your new message. Gmail adds the signature after your message on its own (Gmail Help). Click below it and write the PS there. Leave one blank line between the signature and the PS.

In a reply, where Outlook can add your signature too (Microsoft Support), keep the PS with your own text, above the earlier emails quoted underneath. If your signature lands below those quoted emails, write the PS above them instead.

Do not save a PS inside the signature itself. A saved signature goes out on every email it is set for. A note about this week's opening hours would still be there in March.

Is it professional to use PS in a business email?

Yes, in most everyday business email, as long as the PS adds one useful detail. It suits short, friendly messages to customers and suppliers you already know. It looks out of place in formal correspondence.

Email	Use a PS?	Reason
A reply to a regular customer or supplier	Yes	A friendly or useful extra, without a second email
A booking or job confirmation	Yes, for one detail	Parking, access or what to bring fits at the end
A first email to someone you have never dealt with	Rarely	On a cold first email, a PS reads like a sales letter
A complaint, dispute or formal notice	No	Every point belongs in the body, where it is part of the record
Condolences or bad news	No	An afterthought can look careless

For a business email, one test decides it. If the reader would be worse off for missing a point, it goes in the body. That includes a new deadline, a changed price or the action you need from them.

A PS can repeat such a point. It should never be the only place the reader finds it.

What to write instead of PS

In a formal email, move the extra point into a short last paragraph before the sign-off. Openers such as "One more thing:" or "Separately," do the same job without the look of a handwritten letter.

Using a PS in email marketing

In a marketing email, a PS gives a reader who has skimmed to the bottom one last reason to act. It works best with one job: an extra fact, a deadline or a second link to the offer. The examples below are invented.

PS Online orders placed at the weekend go out on Monday morning.

In a newsletter about a new range, this PS answers the delivery question some readers will have. Keep it to a fact the reader can act on.

Order by noon on [date] for local delivery in time for Mother's Day.
[Button: Choose your flowers]

Best wishes,
The team at Example Flowers

PS Local delivery orders close at noon on [date].

A deadline suits a PS as a repeat: the body gives the date, the PS restates it in one line. When the deadline is the whole email, add a countdown timer next to the button and let the PS repeat the date in words.

PS Missed the open evening? The 20-minute recording is here: [link]

A reader who has scrolled through a long newsletter should not have to scroll back up for the button. Point the PS link at the same page as the main button, in keeping with newsletter design built around one call to action.

Two habits weaken a marketing PS:

• A staged "PS I almost forgot". Readers know a newsletter was planned and checked, so the line reads as a trick.
• A second offer. A PS that promotes something else splits the clicks the first offer needed.

You will often read that a PS in email gets more attention than any other line. The email marketing pages that repeat it name no study.

Secondary accounts trace the idea to Siegfried Vögele's eye-tracking tests on printed direct-mail letters, not email. We found no published email test that measured it.

Your own clicks are a better guide. Send half the list a version without the PS and compare. On a small list, testing two versions of an email will only show a large difference.

What does PPS mean?

PPS (post-postscript) is a second short note added after the PS. Cambridge defines it as a message added to a letter after one has already been added (Cambridge Dictionary).

At work, a PPS is nearly always one note too many. If you have two extra points, the second belongs in the main message.

A PPS fits a personal newsletter signed by the owner, where a light second line suits the tone.

PS The spring workshop dates are now on the website.
PPS Yes, the workshop cat will be there again.

Setting up a PS in a MailGraf campaign

The MailGraf email editor takes the PS as its own Text block under your sign-off, so it sits last before the footer. Once the campaign is sent, Link performance in the full campaign report counts clicks for each web address. A PS link that repeats the button's address therefore shares a row with the button. To count its clicks separately, add ?from=ps to the end of the PS link's address, or &from=ps if the address already contains a ?.