How to reply Automatically to Messages in Gmail Or Google Apps

I prefer Google while discussing about mail service. Both Gmail and Google apps are now most used mail services for their advanced and user friendly interface. One great facility that Gmail and Google apps provides is that you can reply to a mail automatically though you are not online.

Related: Open Multiple Email Accounts in Firefox at the Same Time.

Again, suppose you are far from your computer and presently you can’t access internet. So if your friends or blog readers send you any mail you can’t reply them instantly. Here the automatic procedure makes your goal. You can save a message for them. So that whenever they send you a mail, they will get your message as an acknowledgment.

How to set your mail box for automatic reply

Gmail vacation responder

Gmail vacation responder allows you to send an automatic reply. After signing into your Gmail or Google apps account,  click on the setting link at top most corner. Under the “General” tab look for “Vacation responder”. Activate it and write down the subject and the message body that should be received if somebody send you a mail. By default the duration of sending mails automatically is 7 days in Google account. But you can extend the duration by clicking on the “Ends” and defining the ending date. You can choose a long date if you wish.

Vacation responder is useful if your are out of town and want to tell your friend about that if he/she sends any mail. But if you want to reply to your blog visitors mail then Vacation responder may not sounds good. Because, Vacation responder automatically replies to the mails from the  same contact once in every 4 days. This is not a good way to send an acknowledgment to your  blog readers as they can contact number of times in a day or weak.

Gmail canned response:

If any body sends you mails in several time asking the same type of questions then answering each of them is not professional one. You can create a canned template in your Gmail or Google apps account and use that template in future when answering.

Create a canned template in Gmail

In your Gmail account click on the settings link and then the tab “Labs”. Find out the Gmail labs featured as “Choose canned response..”(5th from the top) and enable it by selecting the radio button. Save the lab settings.

Once you activated the canned response, click on compose mail. Here you can see a new drop down as “Canned response”. Expand the drop down box. At this moment the drop down is empty. But you can create a canned template by clicking on “New canned response”.

This will pop up a window where you have to put a name for your canned response template.

Make sure that you have put a relevant name for your canned response other wise you may not recognize it by name in future. You will have to select the response by reading the message body. In turn which will not solve your purpose. Avoid the naming like “Response 1″, “Reply 1″ etc.

Next type the message you would like to send to and click on the “Save Now” button.

Now your canned response template is ready to use. Whenever you get same type of messages, just select the template from the “Canned response” drop down when replying.

Make your reply automatic

If you want to reply automatically to all the mail that ask you same type of issues then you can. What you have to do is to create a filter in your Gmail account first. To do so, click on “Settings” > Filter tab > “Create a new filter”.

In the “Choose search criteria” option you can choose any of incoming mail id, sending mail id,containing any word or does not contain any word and subject. For instance I’m using the Subject field for search criteria. After choosing one for yourself click on “Next step”.

Check the box “Send canned response” and select your canned response template from the drop down box. Click on “Create Filter.

That’s all to reply automatically who mail you on same type of issues. Feel free to drop your opinion n the comment box.