How to set up an out of office email reply service before you go on a trip

Wouldn't you like to go on vacation knowing you don't have to check your email? If you can't rely on an assistant to take care of your digital communication while you're away, an "out of office" message is next.

Here are some tips on how to set up an autoresponder with Gmail and what to keep in mind.

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Prepare your Autoresponder email

No matter how well you communicate your scheduled vacation, people will still try to get in touch with you. An autoresponder will remind them of your absence. Follow this strategy:

• Add Contact information for urgent matters. to your answering machine. This could be the email address of a trusted colleague or a phone number under which you can be reached in an emergency.
• Set up the Autoresponder only for people in your contact list . This prevents random people from getting your emergency number or other contact information.
• Prepare forward for important emails . If you're waiting to hear from someone specific or about a particular topic, make sure those important emails are directed to a colleague who can respond immediately.

Set up Gmail's vacation responder

You can find Gmail's Vacation Responder in the general settings. Click the cogwheel at the top right of your inbox and scroll to the bottom of the General tongue. Choose the dates, write your message in WYSIWYG (format / rich text) or Plain text , and turn on the vacation responder. To prevent strangers or spammers from getting additional contact information or knowing your email account is active, select only send a reply to people in your contacts . Gmail allows you to configure a first and an optional. last day , which means you don't have to remember to turn off auto-reply when you come back.

Forward selected emails using Gmail filters

The vacation responder is a standard message that, while active, is sent to anyone (in your contact list) who emails you. As mentioned above, some emails may require an immediate and personal response. This is where Gmail filters come in.

Please note that in Gmail you can only forward emails to confirmed email addresses. If you want to forward emails to a colleague, you'll need your help. Click the cogwheel at the top right of your Gmail inbox, select Settings , and switch to the Forwarding and POP / IMAP tab . Click the Add a forwarding address button, enter the forwarding email address and click Next to activate the confirmation email. Your colleague will receive a code and instructions on how to confirm the request. If the email is forwarded to you, you can also enter the confirmation code to verify your email address.

To set up your filter, expand the search options above the Gmail inbox. Enter the sender's email address in the from field or keywords in the topic or has the words countryside. You can add multiple email addresses and use search operators. Getting Better at Finding Things with Search Engines:Boolean Search Logic Explained Getting Better at Finding Things with Search Engines:Boolean Search Logic Explained It only takes thousands of Google servers in a second to query about 50K millions of pages indexed, it takes you much longer to scan just the first page of search results. On top of that,... Read More

Click create filter with this search At the bottom right and in the next window, choose your action. In the example below, I've selected a forwarding email address and applied a label to the forwarded email. By doing the same, you can quickly identify forwarded emails based on their label once you return from vacation.

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Final preparations before leaving

It would be quite disappointing if your carefully configured system were to fail. Imagine the stress upon your return. It is essential that you test your out of office messages and forward them before you leave. You can use your own secondary email address and dummy filters to test autoresponders, filters, and forwards.

What would be just as embarrassing is if your responder on vacation remains active long after you've returned home. If you have a to-do list or calendar, create a task or calendar to turn off auto-response and/or filters when you return.

Here's a little rundown of Steve Dotto's entire procedure:

What to do when you return

Hopefully your system worked and all urgent emails have been taken care of by your friendly colleague. When you're ready to tackle your inbox, follow these steps:

• Turn off the vacation responder.
• Disable holiday and forward specific filters.
• Go Through Your Inbox Using the Inbox Zero Strategy 4 Simple Steps to Achieve and Maintain Inbox Zero in Gmail 4 Simple Steps to Achieve and Maintain Inbox Zero in Gmail Read More outlined above.
• Check your Sent folder or a tag you used to see which emails were forwarded or received a canned response.
• Get in touch with colleagues who handled urgent emails and ask them to bring you up to date.
• Follow up when necessary.
• Resubscribe to newsletters if necessary.

Can this be done in other email clients??

Certainly. You can set up autoresponder filters in Thunderbird How to configure Mozilla Thunderbird for autoresponders and scheduled emails How to configure Mozilla Thunderbird for autoresponders and scheduled emails If email is overwhelming, it may be time to set up Replies and Scheduled Emails. Here's how to do it in Mozilla Thunderbird, the free and open source cross-platform desktop email client. Read More Outlook also allows you to set out of office reminders.

Are you using another email client or do you have any more tips for handling email autoresponders? Please speak up and share your questions or ideas in the comments!