Vacation Responder and Auto-Reply in Gmail
### Setting Up a Vacation Responder (User)
1. Open Gmail → Settings (gear icon) → See all settings
2. General tab → scroll to **Vacation responder**
3. Select **Vacation responder on**
4. Set **First day** and optionally **Last day** (auto-disables)
5. Enter Subject (e.g. "Out of Office: 15–22 March")
6. Write the message body
7. Optional: tick "Only send a response to people in my Contacts" — reduces responses to known contacts
8. Save changes
### Sample Out-of-Office Message
> Thank you for your email. I am out of office from [start date] to [end date] and will have limited access to email.
>
> I will reply when I return on [date].
> For urgent matters, please contact [colleague name] at [email] or [phone].
>
> Best regards,
> [Your Name]
### Important Notes
- Gmail sends the auto-reply **only once every 4 days** per sender (not every email)
- If "Last day" is set, the responder turns off automatically at midnight
- The responder does not send to mailing lists you are subscribed to
- A banner appears at the top of Gmail when vacation responder is active
### Turning Off the Vacation Responder
Settings → General → Vacation responder off → Save
Or: click "End now" in the yellow banner at the top of Gmail
### Admin: Set Vacation Responder for a User
If an employee is unexpectedly absent, an admin can set it:
admin.google.com → Users → select user → Reset sign-in settings is not the right path.
Instead use: Gmail delegation — assign a delegate to manage the absent user's inbox and manually reply.
### Automatic Filters as Auto-Replies
For specific scenarios (e.g. auto-reply to support@):
Create a Google Group as a collaborative inbox, or use Gmail filters + canned responses (Templates):
Settings → Advanced → Templates → Enable → Create template → use in filter action