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An email auto-responder replies back to everyone who sends it an email
message, with a prepared (canned) email message.
Please click here and compare email
auto-responders to Vacation Messages.
Email Auto-Responders cause many problems. It is important
to understand
- How auto-responders work and
- what can go wrong.
An Email Auto-Responder looks like an email account - but it is not.
An auto-responder is a program with an email address assigned to it. It
does not save emails it receives.
Two things commonly go wrong.
First, if you set up an auto responder on your email account, your
email account WILL STOP SAVING EMAILS you receive. Auto-responders
delete emails after the auto-response is sent. If an auto-responder has a
forwarding address assigned to it, emails received are forwarded to the second
address before being deleted. This makes sense when you consider the second
problem.
Next, suppose you setup an auto-responder on your email address, so everyone
who emails you gets an email back saying you received their email, it's
important to you, and you'll respond back in a certain time period. Then someone
else gets your auto response and says "that's a great idea, I'll do that too".
Then, they email you.
You auto-respond to them . . . and they auto-respond to you.
You auto-respond to their auto-response . . .
and they auto-respond to your auto-response.
You auto-respond to their auto-response . . .
and they auto-respond to your auto-response.
The two of you auto-respond back and forth until your email boxes are full. Our
mail server administrators call this a "mail bomb", and they do not like people
setting them off.
This is why auto-responders do not save emails, they are not intended to
operate as an email account.
So, how do you use an auto-responder?
- Setup an email account and activate the auto-responder feature
(instructions are below).
- Forward emails sent to the email auto-responder to a second email
account that does not have an auto-responder.
- Set the "FROM" address on the email auto-responder to the email address
of the second account. This way, if someone auto-responds back to your
auto-responder, your second account receives it and you do not auto-respond.
Here's an example. The screen shots in the instructions below correspond to
this example.
- Setup an email account called SupportTech.
- Setup an email account called Support and activate the
auto responder feature. Forward emails received by the Support
account to the SupportTech email address, where they are
saved.
- Set the "Reply To" address on the Support account to
SupportTech. This way, if an auto-responder replies to your
auto response message, it goes directly to SupportTech and
not to the auto responder.
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