How to add an electronic signature in the Files app on iPhone
What you actually have is a PDF saved in iCloud Drive, On My iPhone, or a connected provider. Here is how it gets signed and sent back, on the phone in your hand — no printer, no scanner, no account.
Option A · free · nothing to install
Apple Markup — free, already on your iPhone
The Files app previews with Quick Look, and Quick Look has Markup built in. Markup ships with iOS at no cost, holds one saved signature, and can send the marked-up copy straight back from the same screen.
- Open what you have in the Files app. What you are dealing with is a PDF saved in iCloud Drive, On My iPhone, or a connected provider.
- Get it to a screen that can sign. Tap the file to open Quick Look, then tap the Markup icon — the pen tip in a circle at the top right.
- Sign it. Tap the + at the bottom right of Markup, choose Signature, sign with your fingertip, tap Done, then drag the signature onto the line and pull the blue handles until it sits on the line rather than through the text underneath.
- Send it back. Tap Done, then use the share button in Files to email or message the signed copy.
If this is a one-off, stop here. The free route above signs the document and sends it back. Where it gets slow is repetition: Apple Markup holds one signature and no initials, text boxes do not snap to the form’s lines, there is no date shortcut, and nothing you place is flattened into the page.
Option B · with Signed
Sign it with Signed instead
Same document, fewer taps — because the signature, the initials and the date are already saved, and everything you place is flattened into the exported PDF.
- Share the PDF into Signed. From the same share sheet you reached out of the Files app, pick Signed — or import the PDF from inside the app. It stays on your iPhone: nothing is uploaded and there is no cloud copy.
- Drop in the signature you already saved. Tap the signature line and place the signature you made once — drawn with a fingertip, typed in a real handwriting style, or generated with AI. You never redraw it per document.
- Fill in the rest of the page. Add the date, your initials, your name, text and checkmarks with the matching tools. Today’s date fills itself in and saved initials are one tap per page.
- Export a flattened PDF and send that. Export the signed copy flattened, so the signature and every field become part of the page rather than a layer someone can drag off it. Then tap Done, then use the share button in Files to email or message the signed copy.
The catch with the Files app
Markup edits the file in place. If you might need the blank original again — a form you fill in monthly, say — duplicate it first with touch and hold → Duplicate, or you will overwrite your only clean copy.
Signed signs PDFs. It does not convert file formats, sync your files, or send documents out for someone else’s signature — which is why anything that is not already a PDF goes through the Files app’s own export first.
Other cloud storage & files apps
Signing from a different app
See all 62 apps → · know the document but not the app? Pick it by document type → · comparing services instead? See the e-sign alternatives →
Signed is a signing tool, not legal advice. Whether an electronically signed copy is accepted depends on the document, the counterparty and where you are — for anything high-stakes, check what your jurisdiction requires, including whether a notary or witnesses are needed. the Files app is a trademark of its respective owner and this page is not endorsed by or affiliated with it; Apple, Markup, iPhone and iOS are trademarks of Apple Inc. App interfaces change, so a menu may have moved since this was written.