FAQ - How do I set my vacation message?

How do I set my vacation message?

The vacation mode is a specialized mode which you use to let people who send you mail know you are out of town for a period of time.

To set your vacation message:

Exit all email clients, such as Mozilla or Netscape.

Start your web browser.

Click on Options.

Click on Vacation Message.

Click on the box next to "Enable automatic vacation reply." to enable vacation messages.

Enter the day you wish the vacation message to start and the day you wish it to stop. Use the format mm/dd/yyyy, where:
mm is the two digit month
dd is the two digit day
yyyy is the four digit year

Enter the number of days between replies to repeat senders.
This mode keeps track of the incoming messages and allows you to specify how frequently a repeat sender should receive your vacation message while you are gone. Here are the meanings of some possible settings:
- 0: everytime a person sends you an email, they will get your vacation message.
- 1: each sender will only get your message once a day.
- Length of your vacation in days: each sender will only get your message one time while you are away.
Thus, someone whom you correspond with a lot doesn't necessarily get a notification that "you have gone fishing and will be back next Wednesday" every time he or she sends you something while you're on your fishing expedition.

Enter a Subject line for the message.

In the first box put text that will only be included in messages sent to lbl.gov addresses.

In the second box put text that will be sent to all other addresses.

Click on "Save Changes"

Note: The vacation message settings do not take effect until you have logged out of the webmail interface. Do not test the vacation message until after you have logged out of webmail.

Date must be four digits.

The year must be given as four digits. Two digit years do not work.

I am not getting a one time reply to my vacation message.

You must close both webmail and your mail client (ie Mozilla) to activate your vacation message.

This problem can occur if you have both your mail client and webmail open while testing your vacation message. To avoid this problem exit webmail before testing your vacation message.

What changes were made to vacation messages with the imap server upgrade?

Vacation message updates can *only* be made using the IMAP "webmail" interface at:
http://www.lbl.gov/mail/

Both start and stop dates are now required when a vacation message is enabled. To get a "never-ending" vacation message, you may want to set the stop date to something like "09/21/2050" so it will function long-term.

You can set the number of days between replies to repeat senders.

When you set or update a vacation message, the change DOES take effect, but you will NOT see the updated settings until you log out and log back in to the webmail interface.

Last modified Mon Mar 1 17:45:22 PST 2004