Set up an out-of-office reply

Plan the reply

An autoresponder tells senders you are away while messages continue arriving in your existing mailbox. Decide the start and end times and an alternative contact method. Avoid unnecessary personal details in the reply.

Create the automatic response

1. Open Autoresponders in cPanel and select Add Autoresponder.
2. Keep UTF-8 as the character set so international characters display correctly.
3. Set an interval such as 24 hours between replies to the same sender. A value of 0 replies to every message.
4. Select the mailbox address and domain. Enter the sender display name and a clear subject.
5. Write a response, for example: Thank you for your message. I am away from 12 to 16 October and will reply when I return. For urgent matters, please contact info@example.com. Replace these details with your own.
6. Set start and end times. Check the time zone used by the interface before saving.

Test and monitor

Send a test message from an external address while the responder is active. Check that both the original message and the automatic reply arrive. A second test from the same address may not receive a reply until the configured interval has passed.

If no reply arrives, check the address, schedule and previous tests. Messages classified as spam may not receive a response. Remove or update the autoresponder when you return and review any forwarding rules too.