A Recipient object represents a person that can sign the documents in your envelopes. When you send someone an envelope, the envelope recipient is linked to their Recipient record and carries its id as recipientId. The same person gets the same recipientId in every envelope you send them, so you can reuse the id instead of entering their email and name again.

Identity is the recipient id, not the email. The same email may map to several recipients in one account, each with its own name and metadata. This is useful for platforms where the same person interacts with several of your customers.

You can create a recipient in two ways. By providing their name and email when creating an envelope, or by using the Create Recipient endpoint.

The Create Recipient endpoint always creates a new recipient, even if one with the same email address already exists.

Recipients can save their signature for future automatic signing.

To set this up, use the Request Signature endpoint or request it directly from the dashboard. The recipient will receive an email asking them to authorize the automatic use of their signature and save it.

Once it is saved, you can enable automatic signing by setting autoSignwhen creating an envelope. The recipient's documents will then be signed automatically using their stored signature, without requiring them to open or sign anything.

You can remove a stored signature using the Remove Signature endpoint or directly from the dashboard.

This endpoint creates a recipient. Creation never deduplicates. The same email may map to several recipients, each with its own name and metadata, because identity is the recipient id.

To reuse an existing recipient, reference it by recipientId when creating an envelope instead of creating a new one.

The List Recipients endpoint returns every recipient stored in your account with the given email. The match is exact and case-insensitive.

The same email may map to several recipients, so the result is a list. Use it to find the recipientId of a person you have previously included in an envelope.

The Get Recipient endpoint returns a stored recipient.

The Update Recipient endpoint updates the display name or metadata of a recipient. Envelopes are not affected. They keep the recipient name they were created with, including envelopes that are still in progress.

The email cannot be changed after creation.

The Delete Recipient endpoint removes a recipient from your account. This does not affect envelopes that have already been sent, as they keep their own copy of the recipient's information.

You cannot delete a recipient who has a stored signature or a pending enrolment. Use the Remove Signature endpoint to remove the signature first.

Deleting a recipient cannot be undone.

The Request Signature endpoint sends the recipient an email asking them to save their signature for future automatic signing. The recipient verifies their email address using a one-time code, authorizes the automatic use of their signature, and then saves it.

The link is valid for 7 days. Calling the endpoint again replaces a pending request and sends a new link. Once the recipient completes the enrolment, the recipient.signature.enrolled webhook event fires and envelopes can set autoSign on this recipient. See the Create Envelope endpoint.

The request will fail if the recipient already has a stored signature. You need to remove it before requesting a new one.

Once enrolled, the recipient will not receive any additional emails from PDFGate when their signature is used automatically. Each automatic signing is recorded in the audit log, along with the recipient's enrolment details.

The Remove Signature endpoint removes a recipient's stored signature or cancels a pending enrolment, making the enrolment link invalid.

Once the signature is removed, automatic signing will no longer be available for that recipient until they complete a new enrolment.

If any envelopes are already waiting for the recipient's automatic signature, they will receive an email with a link to sign the documents manually instead.

Removing a stored signature triggers the recipient.signature.revoked webhook event. The endpoint is idempotent, so calling it when no stored signature or pending enrolment exists leaves the recipient unchanged.