Department of Computer Science

Replying to Email with a "Vacation" message

If you're not going to be reading and responding to your email, you might want to use the vacation program to automatically reply to people who send you mail.

Enabling vacation auto-response

To enable vacation auto-response, add ,|vacation to /stage/forward/your_username. For example, if you use IMAP, your new vacation forward file might look like this:
|imap,|vacation

Note that the vacation program by itself does not deliver emails to your inbox. So, if you would like to read emails received while vacation auto-response is enabled, you should include |imap

(for IMAP users) or another email address in your forward file.

Updating the vacation response email

The file /stage/vacation/your_username/vacation.msg contains the email message that others will receive when vacation auto-response is enabled. This file contains a default message:

Subject: away from my mail

I will not be reading my mail for a while.
Your mail concerning "$SUBJECT"
will be read when I return.

You may edit this message with more specific information, such as the dates that you will be away.

Note: For previous users of the vacation program, the .vacation.msg file in your home is no longer functional.

Disabling vacation auto-response

To disable vacation auto-response, remove the extra ,|vacation from your forward file. You do not need to update the vacation.msg file, simply updating the forward file will disable this feature.

For more information about vacation, email techstaff@cs.uchicago.edu.