Note: If you don’t see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
In an instant, you feel a weight lifted from your shoulders, and a choir of angels sing Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy around you as you skip out of the office. You gaze upon the masses of workers on the tram, smugly wondering if their out-of-office responses are on yet.
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“No! I'm adamant that when you're out of the office and away from work, you should be out of the office,” Sullivan says. “We all need time to rest and recover, and to be human beings instead of workers. Anything that needs to be handled at work can be done by someone else, or can wait until your return.”
The UPS driver is scheduled to pick me back up on the eighth. He should deliver me back to the office by the ninth (assuming he’s not late like he was this time).
Hi, I am currently out of the office until [MM/DD]. I will reply to emails as soon as I can upon my return. If this is urgent, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone]. In the meantime, check out this new [product/sale/service/etc]. I can answer any questions about it for you when I get back.
I appreciate your message. I am out of the office currently with no office email access. However, return on the following [date-of-return].
I might sound nitpicky but the language is important. “Might” or “may be” or “slower than usual” are vague and don’t offer the sender all that much information about when you’re really going to respond to them. Worse, they do a horrible job of protecting the time of the email receiver who, as the responder notes, is not in the office! Such a responder implies that, not only will the vacationer reply to the email, but they may not even miss a beat. They may be slow to respond, but they also might not.
Thanks so much for reaching out. I’m currently attending the [conference/event name] from [date] to [date] and will have limited access to email during this time.
Education Details: An out of office message is a compact text that conveys the most important facts: How long you’ll be unreachable, when your contacts can expect an answer, (optionally) the reason for the absence, and, if necessary, a personal note. A referral to another email address, e.g. to one of your colleagues, is often helpful or even necessary.
Brad, You can manually turn on DND to activate Auto Reply, explained in the article.
If you depend on iCloud emails, you can set the vacation response right from your iCloud Email Settings. Log in to www.icloud.com and select the Mail. Once you open the mail app on the browser, click on the Settings icon from the left bottom of the sidebar.
Although out of office emails are usually used when a person’s on holiday, they can also be used in a number of other circumstances.
One nice compromise I’ve seen is that some people add upcoming PTO to their email signature for a week or two beforehand. That way the people you’re working with right then get a heads up without needing to spam everyone with the information.
I have a colleague that does this with their voicemail. Almost always forgets to change the message once they’re back in so if you call, say, on Thursday, June 3, and you get their voicemail, you will hear how the person is out of the office from May 24 to 26 and who to call while the person is away.
If your email client allows it, you could always just use an image to express your out-office sentiment, like this one. After all, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words — and visual content is still essential to successful marketing.
Let me clarify that the names of holidays are capitalized — Christmas, Easter, Independence Day and the like. The word “holiday” itself, however, is usually not. The third Thursday of November can be called Thanksgiving or the Thanksgiving holiday, but it is not the Thanksgiving Holiday. How do I put an out of office message? Select File > Automatic Replies. In the Automatic Replies box, select Send automatic replies. On the Inside My Organization tab, type the response that you want to send to teammates or colleagues while you are out of the office. Select OK to save your settings. Does Gmail have an auto reply option? Turn on Canned Responses by opening Gmail's Settings (the gear icon) and enabling the Canned Responses option in the Advanced tab. Create the template you wish to use for auto-replying to messages. Select the Show Search Options triangle in the search field at the top of Gmail.
Not every vacation you take is going to leave you completely unreachable. For those days when you’re out of the office but are still checking and responding to email or phone calls, make sure your message explicitly states that people will still be able to reach you, and how: