Nobody actually writes Best regards
We parsed 71,216 real emails from four public corpora — the Git mailing list (2022–2026), Enron's internal mail (1999–2002), and two decades of spam and phishing — and counted how every one of them ends. "Best regards" turns up in 0.71% of human emails: 1 in 141. Most email doesn't close at all, with 69.7% of Git list messages and 57.7% of Enron's carrying no sign-off formula. When people do…
Every email ends with a final statement, a brief message that signals the conclusion of the correspondence. Traditionally, the formal sign-off "Best regards" was expected and taught, but in reality, it turns out to be a weak signal. By analyzing 71,216 real emails from various sources, researchers discovered that gratitude dominates the closing remarks.
A staggering 84.7% of Git list contributors close their messages with a version of "thanks." The "regards" family, including "regards," "best regards," "kind regards," and "warm regards," makes up 7.9% of closings. In contrast, the formal sign-offs such as "Sincerely" and "Yours truly" account for a mere 1.3% of closings across both datasets.
Surprisingly, spam and phishing messages exhibit a higher level of formality, with the "regards" family comprising 51.7% of their closings, compared to just 12.5% of human mail. This finding suggests that the widespread use of "Best regards" in emails is not reflective of genuine, professional communication.
Written by urgent.news from HackerNoon's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
