Setting Up Vacation Auto-Reply

You are going on vacation. Or taking parental leave. Or maybe you only check a particular inbox twice a week. Whatever the reason, you need the people who email you to know what is going on -- without you having to reply to every single message by hand.

That is exactly what auto-reply does. It watches your mailbox and sends a pre-written response to anyone who writes to you while the auto-reply is active. The reply goes out automatically, within seconds of the incoming message arriving, so the sender is never left wondering whether their email disappeared into a void.

Why auto-reply matters

When someone emails you and hears nothing back, they start to worry. Did the message get lost? Should they resend? Should they call? A short, friendly auto-reply removes all of that anxiety. It tells the sender three things: their message was received, you are unavailable right now, and here is what they should do in the meantime.

This is especially important for client-facing mailboxes. If a prospective customer emails your agency and gets silence for a week, they may move on. An auto-reply buys you goodwill and time.

When to use it

Auto-reply is not just for beach vacations. Here are some common situations where it helps:

• Vacation or holiday -- you will be away for several days or weeks.
• Parental leave -- you will be away for an extended period and someone else is handling your responsibilities.
• Sabbatical or medical leave -- similar to above, but potentially longer.
• Conference or travel -- you will be slow to respond for a few days.
• Part-time monitoring -- you only check a particular mailbox on certain days.
• Departed employee -- someone has left the company and their mailbox is still receiving messages.

Step-by-step setup

1. Open the TrekMail dashboard and go to Mailboxes.
2. Click on the mailbox you want to configure.
3. Click Settings in the top navigation bar.
4. Select the Auto-Reply tab.
5. Check the Enable auto-reply checkbox.
6. Fill in the Reply subject field. This is the subject line the sender will see. For example: "Out of office until April 15."
7. Write your message in the Message box. Keep it concise and helpful. (See examples below.)
8. Optionally, set a Start date and End date. If you set these, the auto-reply will activate and deactivate on those dates automatically. If you leave them blank, the auto-reply stays on until you turn it off manually.
9. Check the Don't reply to mailing lists and automated messages checkbox. (More on this below -- you almost always want this on.)
10. Click Save settings.

That is it. Your auto-reply is live.

Writing a good auto-reply message

The best auto-replies are short, warm, and give the sender a clear next step. Here are four examples for different situations:

Standard vacation:

Thanks for your email. I am out of the office from April 1 through April 15 with limited access to email. I will reply to your message when I return. If you need immediate help, please contact my colleague Sarah at sarah@yourcompany.com.

Parental leave:

Thank you for reaching out. I am currently on parental leave and will be back in June. While I am away, please contact Jordan at jordan@yourcompany.com for anything time-sensitive. I look forward to reconnecting when I return.

Part-time monitoring:

Hi there. I check this inbox on Mondays and Thursdays. If your message arrives on another day, I will get back to you on my next working day. For urgent matters, you can reach our main office at hello@yourcompany.com.

Left the company:

The person you are trying to reach is no longer at Acme Corp. For general inquiries, please contact our team at team@acme.com. We will make sure your message gets to the right person.

Notice the pattern: acknowledge the email, explain the situation, and provide an alternative contact. You do not need to share personal details about why you are away.

The 7-day throttle

Here is an important detail: each sender only receives your auto-reply once every seven days. If your colleague emails you three times on Monday, they get one auto-reply -- not three.

This exists to prevent annoying back-and-forth loops. Imagine two people both have auto-replies turned on. Without the throttle, their mailboxes would ping-pong replies to each other endlessly. The 7-day window stops that from happening.

You do not need to configure this. It is built in and always active.

Start and end dates

If you set both a Start date and End date, the auto-reply turns itself on and off automatically. This is ideal when you know your exact travel dates in advance -- you can set it up on Friday before leaving and not worry about it again.

If you leave both dates blank, the auto-reply activates immediately when you check Enable auto-reply and stays on until you come back and turn it off. This works well for open-ended situations like parental leave where the return date is flexible.

You can also set just a start date with no end date. The auto-reply will activate on that date and stay on until you disable it.

The "Don't reply to mailing lists" checkbox

When this is checked, your auto-reply will not respond to messages that come from mailing lists, newsletters, or automated notification systems. You almost certainly want this turned on.

Why? Because replying to a mailing list means every subscriber on that list sees your out-of-office message. That is embarrassing at best and disruptive at worst. And replying to automated emails from services like Stripe or GitHub is pointless -- no human is reading those replies.

Leave this checkbox on unless you have a very specific reason to turn it off.

Turning auto-reply off

When you are back:

1. Go to Mailboxes and click the mailbox.
2. Go to Settings and select the Auto-Reply tab.
3. Uncheck Enable auto-reply.
4. Click Save settings.

Your subject line and message text are preserved. Next time you need an auto-reply, you can just check the box again and update the dates rather than rewriting everything from scratch.

Tips and gotchas

• Keep it short. Two to four sentences is ideal. People skim auto-replies, so put the most important information (when you will be back and who to contact) right up front.
• Update it when you return. Nothing looks worse than an auto-reply that says "I'll be back January 5" and it is now February. If you did not set an end date, remember to turn it off.
• Test it. Send an email to your mailbox from a personal account to make sure the reply looks right.
• Auto-reply does not suppress delivery. The incoming email still lands in your inbox. Auto-reply just sends a response -- it does not delete, move, or block anything.

Frequently asked questions

Does auto-reply respond to spam? No. Spam is filtered by the server before auto-reply runs. You will not accidentally reply to junk mail.

Can I have different auto-replies for different senders? Not with the auto-reply feature directly. But you can achieve this with mail filters. Create a filter that matches specific senders and uses a "reject with message" or "redirect" action. See the filter examples article for ideas.

What happens if I downgrade my plan? Auto-reply is available on Starter, Pro, and Agency plans. If you downgrade to Nano, your auto-reply settings are saved but the auto-reply stops running. When you upgrade again, it reactivates with your saved settings -- you do not lose anything.

Can I use HTML formatting in my auto-reply? The message is sent as plain text. Keep it simple -- no bold, no images, no links that rely on HTML formatting. Plain text auto-replies are more reliable and display correctly in every email client.

Does the auto-reply include my email signature? No. The auto-reply sends exactly the text you type in the Message box. If you want a signature-like sign-off, include it in your message.