Honest communication, even in the form of an email auto reply, is a roadmap. It helps people understand how best to help you and, in turn, allows them to better help themselves. Straightforward expectation setting is a way to be respectful of your coworkers’ time and pressures, but most importantly, it’s a way to be respectful of and guard your time. Even if you don’t feel an intense need to be more open in your workplace correspondence, consider modeling the behavior for others who work with you or, especially, those who work for you. It’s a small change in behavior but it’s a meaningful one. And this summer is the perfect time to start.
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.

Setting up an out of office email depends on each company and the emailing systems and inbox setting used. But, it's also possible to set up an automatic reply for Gmail accounts and, with the coronavirus pandemic seeing more people go freelance than ever before, we're going to outline exactly how to get that Gmail out of office setting up and running.
Yes. We do it that way in part because someone might be at a satellite office but out of OUR office and still be able to access emails, OR they might be completely offline at the beach. Saying you’re not answering emails can be helpful.