Gmail vacation reply autoresponder

You can have the Gmail vacation autoresponder up and running in less than a minute; yes, it’s that simple! So when you are on a holiday, for instance, and don’t want to be disturbed, this can really come in handy. The autoresponder will send a designated reply to incoming messages without any manual involvement – you don’t need to be logged in Gmail.

However, this feature can be put to other ingenious uses. In the article on Outlook Express auto reply, I described how an equivalent functionality was employed to send a change of address when we were shifting our offices.

Gmail vacation auto responder

1. Log in at your Gmail email account.
2. Click the “Settings” link.
3. Under the “General” (first) tab, move down to the “Vacation responder” section.
4. Turn on the responder by clicking on the appropriate radio button.
5. Select the date from which you want the responses to be sent. You can also specify the end date if you know when you will be back from holiday – I never do :-).
6. Type in a subject for the vacation reply and the matter.
7. Put a check mark in front of “Only send a response to people in my Contacts” if you don’t want the reply to be sent for all messages you receive.
8. Click the “Save Changes” button to confirm the modifications you’ve made.

Once the vacation autoresponder is active, a banner will be displayed at your account informing you of the same. Please note that if someone sends you several messages, they will get a Gmail auto reply once every four days. The Gmail autoresponder can be edited anytime by logging in at your account but changing the auto response subject or content will reset the autoresponder.

You may also be interested in knowing how to send an autoreply from your Hotmail email account or an Outlook Express vacation reply .