If you plan to be away from your email for an extended length of time, you can create an email Auto-Reply message that will be sent when you receive an email.
To Create a Vacation Responder:
- Navigate to cedarville.edu/google.
- Click the "Mail" link and log in.
- Click the gear-shaped "Settings" icon and choose “See all settings” from the resulting menu.
- In the [General] tab, scroll to “Vacation responder.”
- Click the “Vacation responder on” radio button.
- Click the “First day” box to set the date for when you want the auto-reply to begin (select the day from the mini-calendar; the current day is automatically selected).
- Type the subject of your email into the “Subject” box.
- Type your message into the “Message” box.
- Check the box next to “Only send a response to people in my Contacts” if you don’t want everyone who emails you to know that you’re away.
- In Google Apps, you also have the option to send a response only to people in your domain (Cedarville.edu). Check the “Only send a response to people in Cedarville University” to use that option.
Note: If a message is classified as spam or it is addressed to a mailing list you subscribe to it will not receive a vacation response.
To Test Your Vacation Responder:
- You can test the auto-reply by sending yourself an email message. You should receive an email with your auto-reply message in response.
To End Your Vacation Responder:
- While the vacation responder is enabled, you will see a banner across the top of your Google Mail page, displaying the subject of your vacation response. If you did not set an ending date for your auto-reply, you can use this banner to end the response. Click “End now” within the banner.
- Once you end the responder, it will be turned off, but your message will remain in settings for the next time that you need it.