Out-of-office reply
An automatic reply telling senders that the recipient is away, set up in the recipient's mail program; it shows the message reached a mailbox.
What it means
RFC 3834 treats out-of-office notices as personal responders. It asks them not to send the same response to the same sender more than once in several days, recommending 7 days as the default, and to reply only when the recipient's address is listed in To, Cc or Bcc. Providers set their own intervals: Gmail's vacation responder can answer the same person again if they write after four days, and Outlook sends its automatic reply once to each person who writes during the absence.
For a sender, an out-of-office reply is evidence that the address exists and the message was delivered, not that it was read, and it often includes a return date or another contact.
Related terms
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- RFC 3834, section 2: When (not) to send automatic responsesrfc-editor.org
- Google, Gmail Help: Send an automatic reply when you are out of officesupport.google.com
- Microsoft Support: How to set up out of office automatic replies in Outlooksupport.microsoft.com
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