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How to set up my email account to send an automatic message when I am away on vacation on my Windows web email server?
updated Wed, June 25, 2008

To learn how to set up your email auto-responding vacation message on our UNIX server, click here

Setting Up an Automatic eMail Reply (Windows server)

If you are going on vacation and will not be able to check your mail for a while, you may want to leave a vacation notice that will be automatically sent to your correspondents once they send e-mail to your address. This is done with automatic reply facility, also referred to as autoresponder. Aside from vacation notices, organizations can use automatic replies to notify customers that their orders or technical support requests were received and will soon be processed. Automatic replies can include pre-written messages in plain text or HTML format, and they can contain attached files as well.

1st login to your Web Appliance: click here to log into your Windows web server in a new window

You should have been provided with the username/password when we originally setup your web hosting account. If you do not have this information, please contact us.

To set up automatic reply for a mailbox:

1. Log into your Windows web server: click here to log into your Windows web server in a new window
   
2. Click on the "Home" link in the top left hand corner of the next screen.
3. Click Mail.
4. Click on the link for the e-mail address, for which you wish to set up an automatic reply.
5. Click Autoresponders in the Tools group.
6. If you are not going to attach any files to the automatic reply, proceed to the step 7. To attach a file to the automatic reply:
   1. Click Attachment Files in the Tools group.
   2. Click Browse to locate the file, and once selected, click Send File.
   3. The file will be added to the attachment files storage, and you will be able to attach this file to a number of different automatic replies.
   4. Once finished, click Up Level and proceed to the next step.
7. Click on the Autoresponders icon and make sure the Autoresponders link below is set to ON
   
8. Click Add New Autoresponder in the Tools group.
9. Configure the automatic reply:
   1. Type a name for this automatic reply into the Autoresponder name box.
      
      For example, Vacation notice.
   2. If you want this automatic reply to be sent in reply to any incoming e-mail message, in the Request group, leave the always respond option selected. If you wish to automatically reply only to e-mail messages that contain specific words in the message text or subject line, select the appropriate option, and type the word combination in the Request text input box.
   3. By default, the subject line of incoming e-mail will be inserted into the automated reply. To use a custom subject, type it into the Answer with subject subject input box.
   4. As your correspondents may not figure out that the message they received from you was an automatic response, they may want to respond to your auto-reply. So, you should specify your e-mail address as the Return address, otherwise, their messages will be directed at the autoresponder's address.
   5. Type your message in the Reply with text field.
   6. To limit the number of automated responses per day to the same e-mail address, enter the desired number in the Reply to unique e-mail address not more than input box under Limits.
      
      The default setting is to respond no more than ten times in one day to the same e-mail address.
   7. To reduce mail server load, you may want to limit the number of unique addresses that the autoresponder will remember. To do this, enter the desired number into the Store up to box.
   8. If you want your incoming mail to be forwarded to another e-mail address while you are away, specify an e-mail address in the Forward request to e-mail box.
   9. Attach your files, if needed. To do this, click the Add New Attachment button, select the check box corresponding to the file that you previously uploaded to the attachment storage, and click OK. To remove an attached file from the automatic reply, select the corresponding checkbox, and click Remove Selected.
10. Click OK.
11. Click Enable in the Tools group.
12. Make sure the icon in the "S" column for the email account in question is a green arrow button.
    If not, click on the red button (inactive) to make it a green button (active)
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Also See:

• Squirrelmail User Guide
• General E-Mail Settings for Outlook Express for PC
• General E-Mail Settings for Outlook 2000 for PC
• General E-Mail Settings for Eudora for PC
• General E-Mail Settings for Mail for Mac OS 10.2
• General E-Mail Settings for Outlook 2002 for PC
• General E-Mail Settings for Outlook 2003 for PC
• Common Problems sending email from Outlook
• I can send email but I cannot receive email (Port 25 is blocked)
• How do I access my E-Mail Defense Account?
• How can I obtain an E-mail Defense User's Guide?
• How do I access my E-mail via a web browser?
• Disk quota exceeded when using SquirrelMail (Web Mail)
• How can I obtain a squirrelmail user guide?
• Other questions regarding access email via a browser (SquirrelMail)

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