Setting up Autoreply in Gmail

How to set up an "Autoreply" in Gmail is one of the regular questions we see in the Gmail Help Community.  

 

An "Autoreply" is different from a "Vacation response" or an "Out of Office" message. It helps Gmail users to automatically send out a first response either to important senders, or to all messages where the Gmail user is listed as a To or Cc recipient. This can be used in situations where one plans to acknowledge emails sent by specific senders or has changed their contact email address and wishes to communicate their new Gmail address to all emailing them at their old Gmail address.

 

The process of setting up the Gmail "Autoreply" involves two Gmail features, namely - Template responses and Filters. Because both these can't be created using the Gmail mobile apps, this setup can only be done by accessing Gmail from a supported, updated desktop browser using this link - https://mail.google.com/. 

 

The first thing we must check is whether the Templates feature under the Advanced tab inside Gmail Settings is enabled or not. 

 

If it is not, we need to enable that option and then click on the Save changes button at the bottom of that page. 

With that option enabled, for ease of reading, we are going to divide this blog into two sections:

1. Setting up Gmail Autoreply for select individual addresses.
2. Setting up Gmail Autoreply for all incoming messages where the address is listed as a To or Cc recipient.

Setting up Gmail Autoreply for select individual addresses.

The first step is to create a Template response which is to be used for Autoreply for emails received from this address. I have previously written a blog on Template responses here, and you can use the details mentioned there to create and save one for this purpose. The one I created for this purpose is saved as Gmail Autoreply One Sender. You are welcome to save your Template response using a name that's convenient for you.

 

The second and final step of setting up the Autoreply for individual sender is to create a filter which will match the emails received from this specific email address and send out the recently created Template response.

A Gmail filter can be created either by clicking on the Show search options icon that's to the right of the Gmail search box or by clicking on the Create a new filter link in the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab under Gmail Settings. 

We first specify the email address for which we want to send the Autoreply in response to and then select the Template response. 

 

As can be seen, we have chosen to send the Gmail Autoreply One Sender Template response to emails received from ed...47@gmail.com.

Once the filter is created, we can see the filter definition under the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab under Gmail Settings.

And we are done! We can now test the efficacy of this filter by sending a message from the specified email address and confirm the specific Template response was sent out immediately.

Note: To include additional email addresses to receive the same Template response, edit the filter definition and include the additional email addresses in Step 1 of the filter creation process using the OR parameter. 

 

Setting up Gmail Autoreply for all incoming messages where the address is listed as a To or Cc recipient.

 

The good thing to note is that a filter set up for emails where the recipient is listed as a To recipient will also work for emails where the recipient is listed as a Cc recipient. However, it will not work for emails where the recipient is listed as a Bcc recipient. 

 

As before,  we first need to set up the Template response for this Autoreply. 

 

 

Once created, we choose to save it under the name Gmail Autoreply All Sender. Once again, feel free to save your Template response using a name that's to your convenience.

Thereafter, we proceed to create the filter to send out this Template response as Autoreply to messages where the recipient's Gmail address is listed as either the To or the Cc recipient.

 

 

Once created, the filter definition will look as shown below.

 

And we can now test this filter by sending an email from any address and including the recipient's address as a To or a Cc recipient. 

 

 

In conclusion, it needs to be pointed out that the second type of Autoreply, send out to all incoming emails, will also match the first type of Autoreply sent out to emails received from specific email addresses. So, in cases where both these filters are created to send out their respective autoreplies, the senders who matches the first type of Autoreply will end up receiving both autoreplies.

 

If you happen to have any questions on this topic, you are welcome to include them in your comment below.