So, you’re going on vacation? Gonna be away from your computer for a while? If you’d like, you could always email every single one of your contacts to let them know where you’re going to be, and for how long. Alternatively, you could simply set up an auto-responder.

How it works is pretty simple: Someone emails you, and the client responds back with a message pre-determined by you.  Here’s how to do it.

Hotmail

1. From your inbox, select Options, then select More Options on the context menu that pops up.
2. Look down under Managing Your Account- you should see “sending automated vacation replies.”  Click the link.
3. Click the “Send Vacation Replies To People Who Email Me” checkbox.
4. Type out your vacation reply.  Keep it short and sweet- nothing too wordy or verbiose. Where you are, why you’re gone, when you’ll be back, et-cetera. You can choose to either uncheck the box next to “Only reply to my contacts” or leave it checked. That one’s up to you.
5. Hit “Save,” and you’re done! Remember to turn it off when you return from your vacation- there’s no way to set it on a timer at the moment.

Gmail

1. While signed in to your Gmail account, click on the gear icon in the upper right hand corner, and select “Gmail Settings.”
2. Scroll down- the item you’re looking for is towards the bottom of the page.
3. From here, it’s pretty much the same drill as with Hotmail, except that you can set a “start date” and “end date” for your vacation- the responder will automatically turn off on the day you select as the ‘end.’
4. Once you’ve entered your message and made sure the “Vacation Responder On” option is enabled, click save changes.
5. Vacation time.

Outlook

1. Outlook’s a little more complicated than Gmail or Hotmail. First thing’s first, you’re going to need to make a new email- this’ll be your vacation message.
2. Once the message has been completed to your satisfaction, click “save as…”
3. Under the document name, you’ll see a dropdown menu with the file type. Open it, and select “Outlook template.”
4. Once you’ve saved the template, click the “Home” tab. Navigate over to the “Rules” menu, and access it to click on “Manage Rules and Alerts.” You’ll be creating a new rule.
5. Select the Apply Rule on messages I receive option. You’ll be presented with a large list of conditions- you only want to select “sent only to me.” and click Next.
6. Select the reply using a specific template option, and load in the template you created in steps 1-3. Click “Finish” and you’re done!

Yahoo!

1. First and foremost, go to Options-> Mail Options first.
2. Click on Vacation Response. 
3. Check Enable auto-response during your vacation.
4. Select the start and end date for the auto-responder.
5. Click on Save Changes, and you’re done.

AIM Mail/AOL Mail

1. Click on Settings, which should be somewhere in the top area of your mail client.
2. Select the category “General.“
3. Click on No mail away message to enable the auto-responder. That’ll cause a context menu to pop up.
4. Select the option that most applies to you- you can either use one of the stock messages, or custom craft your message.
5. Click on Save. Like Hotmail, AOL/AIM doesn’t have a date option- you’ll have to manually disable it upon your return.

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