After all, most of us long to fully detach while we’re away and we know it’s the healthier and more restorative thing to do. Yet we’re concerned that actually doing so might appear reckless or irresponsible to our clients and colleagues.
Yeah, announcing you were going to delete emails unread and expecting the sender to resend when you return would NEVER fly in my office. I’d get executive complaints about that, especially if it went to a client or outside party – if a client can’t reach you, they will reach out to someone else who may not work at your organization and you lose business. I feel like this delete-it-all philosophy would only work for an entirely internal role where timelines are more relaxed, and even then, I feel it’s a bit unprofessional to foist your own catch-up work onto others, especially if they’ve been backfilling for you while you were OOO.

When you are not in the office for more than a day, telling people who contact you that you might not be checking or responding to your emails right away will help them complete work in your absence. Setting up an out of office message can help you communicate this information. This article will describe how to write an out of office message and provide examples of effective message formats.
You can show just how thrilled you are about your vacation while still providing an apology (of sorts... not really).