Managing your email when you’re away from the office or on vacation can be daunting. That’s where Gmail’s Out of Office (OOO) feature comes in handy. In this article, we will show you how to set Out-of-Office in Gmail. But before we delve into setting up this essential feature, let’s understand what the Out of Office feature in Gmail is.
The Out of Office feature, often called ‘Vacation Responder’ in Gmail, is a powerful tool enabling you to automate your email responses when you’re unavailable to reply to emails personally. It informs your contacts/colleagues that you’re currently out of the office, on holiday, or unavailable for an extended period.
This feature helps you maintain professionalism by acknowledging emails and provides essential information such as the dates of your absence and an optional custom message. With this understanding, let’s begin with things you need to know before setting out of office or away messages on Gmail.
Things to Know Before Setting Out of Office in Gmail
Here are some essential things to know before setting up an out-of-office auto-reply on your Gmail account:
- Before setting up your out-of-office message, choose the correct start and end dates. Ensure that your out-of-office message begins when you’ll be unavailable and ends when you’re back at work.
- While it’s essential to convey that you’re away, personalize your out-of-office message by including details such as the reason for your absence, an alternative contact person, and when the recipient can expect to hear back from you.
- Ensure you have access to your Gmail settings on your mobile device or an alternate way to disable the out-of-office message if your plans change and you must return to work earlier than expected.
- Before finalizing your out-of-office message, send a test email to a personal email address or a colleague to ensure the auto-reply is working as intended and looks professional.
With these factors in mind, you can set up your out-of-office message in Gmail while you’re away. Let’s move on to the steps and methods.
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How to Set Up Out of Office Reply in Gmail Mobile App
Setting up an Out-of-Office or vacation responder on Gmail may seem tricky, but it is not. The steps are fairly simple to follow on iOS and Android apps. Let’s begin.
Step 1: Launch the Gmail app on your Android or iOS device. Tap the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner.
Step 2: In the left pane, scroll down to Settings. On the next screen, if you have multiple accounts connected, choose the account you want to turn Out-of-Office or Vacation responder on.
Step 3: Under Settings, scroll down and choose Vacation responder. And next, toggle it on.
Step 4: It’s time to set the First and Last days of your Out-of-Office or Vacation period, depending on your region.
Note: Your Last day will be selected by default one week after your First day. However, you can customize it based on your timeline. In addition, you can set the Last day option to None if you do not want to have an end date.
Step 5: Once the days are selected, add the subject and message to send to users reaching out during the timeline.
Step 6: Now, select whether you want the message sent only to your contacts or colleagues. Finally, tap on Done.
That’s it. You have set up an automated response to the emails you receive while on vacation or out of the office. After the set last day, the autoresponder will be disabled. However, if you want to turn it off earlier, follow the above steps and toggle it off.
That said if you want to set up and customize vacation responder in Gmail on your desktop, continue reading.
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Set up Out-of-Office or Away Message in Gmail on Desktop
Adding a subject and message, and enabling the autoresponder is similar on desktop and mobile. However, reaching and setting differ slightly. Follow the below instructions.
Step 1: Go to the Gmail website using your account credentials, where you want to set up Out of Office.
Step 2: Once logged in, click the Settings (gear) icon in the top-right corner.
Step 3: Go to the ‘See all Settings’ option from the drop-down menu.
You will be taken to the Gmail settings page.
Step 4: Under General, scroll down to the bottom of the page. You will see Vacation responder options.
Note: Depending on your geolocation, the Vacation reply might be called an ‘Out-of-Office Autoreply.’ For all regions, however, the options remain the same.
Step 5: Now, it’s time to set the date range for when you will be out of the office. Pick the First day, which will be the starting date of your vacation.
Note: Check the Last day checkbox; otherwise, Gmail will send out-of-office messages until you manually disable them.
Step 6: Once the date range is set, you must write the subject and type the message in the Message box you want to send automatically.
Step 7: Now, select from two options; ‘Only send a response to people in my Contacts’ or ‘Only send a response to people in [Company Name].’
Note: You can choose both options too.
Step 8: Finally, click the Save Changes button at the bottom.
There you go. You have successfully set auto-reply for out-of-office on Gmail. Now that you have enabled the option, continue reading to share it with your colleagues.
Sharing your Gmail Out-of-Office status on desktop and mobile is simple. You simply need to create an event on your Google Calendar that spans the entire day. Once you create a Google Calendar event, share it with your colleagues.
When someone starts to compose an email to you, they will see that you are out of the office. It will not stop them from sending you a message. Your out-of-office event status will also be shown only to people with permission to view it.
Alternatively, you can set up your working hours instead. If you have any queries, check out the FAQ section below.
FAQs on Setting Out of Office in Gmail
1. Can I set different Out of Office messages for internal and external contacts?
No, Gmail’s native vacation responder feature doesn’t allow setting different messages for internal and external contacts. The same message will be sent to all incoming emails during your OOO period.
2. Can I send automated responses to specific email addresses?
Gmail’s Vacation Responder will send an out-of-office reply to each unique email address once every 4 days. If the same sender emails you multiple times, they will receive your automated response only once every 4 days.
Communicate Without a Hitch
Now that you know how to set Out-of-Office in Gmail, you can maintain professional communication even when you’re away from your email, ensuring that your contacts are informed about your absence and can expect delayed responses. You may also want to read how to change Gmail name.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
