You will be away for a few days and want whoever writes to you to get a notice straight away: “I am away until day X, and Y is handling this”. In cPanel this is called Autoresponders, it sits in the Email section, and the reply goes out by itself, even with your computer off. The start and end times can be scheduled too.
Step by step
| 1 |
In cPanel, Email section, open Autoresponders and click Add Autoresponder.
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| 2 |
Under Email, type the part of the address before the @ and pick the domain. It is the mailbox that will reply.
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Under From, type the name the recipient sees as the sender (your name, or the company’s). Under Subject, the reply’s subject, for example “Away until day X”.
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In the Body, write the text. If you use formatting, tick This message contains HTML.
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Under Interval choose how many hours must pass before the same sender can get the reply again. A long interval stops someone being flooded with notices if they write to you several times in one day.
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Under Start and Stop pick Immediately and Never, or dates of your own (Custom). With an end date there is no risk of forgetting.
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Click Create. Ask someone to send you a test message, from an address that is not your own.
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What to write
Three things are enough: until when you are away, who can help (another person’s name and address) and, if it applies, what is urgent and how to handle it. Avoid return dates you cannot keep and avoid notices such as “the house is empty”: the message also goes to people who write by mistake and to spam.
If the reply does not go out
Check that the autoresponder is active in the right period (check the start and end dates), that the test message came from an address different from the mailbox’s own, and that the reply did not end up in the tester’s spam folder. If it still fails, the trail of the sending is in Track Delivery.
| Situation |
What to do |
| You are no longer away |
Go back to the same screen and delete the autoresponder, if you did not give it an end date. |
| The address is a list or a forwarder |
Do not put an automatic reply on it: it can start a loop of replies between two addresses. See catch-all, forwarders and aliases. |
| You want a finer rule (only for certain senders) |
Use the webmail filters: filters in Roundcube. |
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Never connect the automatic reply to the catch-all. The catch-all collects mail sent to addresses that do not exist, often spam. Answering that mail confirms to robots that the address is alive, and you will get more.
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Keep sensitive details out of the reply. Do not say where you will be, or when the house is empty. Send everyone the same text, short and professional.
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The automatic reply is not going out? Tell us the mailbox address and the time of your test.
Open a support ticket
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