How to set an out of office responder in Gmail

December 11, 2022

An out of office, or a vacation responder as it's called in Gmail, lets you automatically reply to incoming messages, telling them that you are out of the office. It is not sent to messages that are marked as spam by Gmail.

To create a vacation responder in Gmail, follow these steps:

Step1:‍
Go to the gear icon in the top right corner of your Gmail account, and select See all settings from the side panel that opens.

Step 2:‍
At the Settings page, make sure you are on the "General" tab.

Step 3:‍
Scroll to the bottom, where you'll find the Vacation responder section.

Step 4:‍
Enable the Vacation responder by selecting the radio button next to Vacation responder on.

Step5:‍
Use the First day and Last day fields to specify the dates during which you want the vacation responder to be active.

(PS. The Last day field is optional. If you don’t want to fill it out, you must remember to go back and end your vacation response later.)

Step6:‍
In the Subject field, type the subject line you want to use for your vacation response.

Step 7:‍
In the "Message" field, type the body of your auto-reply. You can use the editor tools to format your message and include links or attachments if needed.Remember: Keep the auto-response polite and professional. Never give away personal information, such as where you’re going or when you’re back. Giving away too much information may give thieves or other bad actors some green lights you don’t want them to have.

Step8:‍
When you are finished, click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page to apply your settings.

Your vacation responder is active and will be sent to anyone who emails you during the specified time period. You can edit or disable the vacation responder at any time by following the same steps and making the necessary changes.‍