Creating an Autoresponder

• Applies to: Grid
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time Needed: 10
  • Tools Required: Email account
• Applies to: Legacy DV & VPS Hosting
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time Needed: 10
  • Tools Required: Plesk administrator access
• Applies to: VPS Hosting
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time Needed: 10
  • Tools Required: Plesk administrator access
• Applies to: DV 4.0
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time Needed: 10
  • Tools Required: Plesk administrator access

Overview

Enabling an auto-reply can potentially result in more spam messages coming to your Inbox, as well as cryptic bounce-back messages. The reason this happens is because the auto-reply function will reply to each and every email that gets sent to your email address, regardless of your anti-spam settings. If you notice a sudden increase in bounce messages, rest assured that it's not something to be concerned about.

Auto-reply is one of the features included in the Grid's webmail interface. From this section, you can enable/disable this feature. Once enabled, it will allow you to specify a custom subject line and auto-reply message.

Instructions

Account Center

1. Log into the Media Temple Account Center.
2. Click on the blue Admin button associated to your Grid server.
   
   
   
   
   • For Grid Personal, Pro, and Elite users:
     In the Server Settings section, click Add/Edit Users.
     
     
   • For (gs) Grid Service, Grid Lite users:
     In the Email section, click Add/Edit Email Users.
     
     
3. Click on the "edit" icon associated to your desired user.
   
   
   
   
4. Click USER SETTINGS on the left-hand side. Locate the Auto-reply Setup section and fill out your autoresponse.
   
   
   
   
5. Once you are finished, click UPDATE USER.
6. That's it! You will now have an autoresponder for your user.

Webmail

1. Visit your Grid's webmail interface by browsing to http://webmail.domain.com in a web browser.
• Note: Be sure to replace "domain.com" with your actual domain name.
2. Enter your email address and password at the login prompt.
   
• Your "Email Address" must be a full email address, e.g., "[e-mail]".
• If you do not know your password, you will need to reset it to be able to log in. Click here for details.
3. Once logged in, click on the "Settings" button in the top menu bar.
   
4. Next, click on "Mail Options" in the menu on the left-hand side.
   
5. To enable the auto-reply function, click the toggle switch.
   
6. That will allow you to fill in a custom message subject and body.
   
7. Last but not least, click on "Save Settings" in the upper right-hand corner.
   

Instructions

Plesk

1. Log into the Plesk Control Panel for your domain.
   
   

   

2. Click on the Mail tab at the top.
   
   

   

3. Select your e-mail address.
   
   

   

4. Click the Auto-Reply tab.
   
   

   

5. Check the box for Switch on auto-reply and specify the following settings.
   • Auto-reply message subject: We recommend that you leave the option Re: <request_subject>.
   • Message format: We recommend that you leave the option Plain text selected because some of your recipients may not be able to see the text formatted with HTML.
   • Encoding. We recommend that you leave the UTF-8 encoding selected to ensure that the letters in your message are displayed properly.
   • Auto-reply message text: Enter your message here.
   • Forward to: If you want to forward incoming messages to another e-mail address, type an e-mail address in this box.
   • Attach a file: If you want to attach a file to your message, click Browse and select a file.
   • Click OK.

   

cPanel

NOTE: The following cPanel instructions was created using the theme "paper_lantern." If you are using a different theme, your visuals/instructions may vary.

1. Log into the cPanel account for your domain.
2. Scroll down to the Email section. Click Autoresponders.
   
   
   
   
3. Click Add Autoresponder.
   
   
   
   
4. Fill out the autoresponder page.
   
   
   
   
   • Character set: Can leave as default "utf-8".
   • Interval: If a person repeatedly emails your user, how many hours should pass before the autoresponder will be sent again.
   • Email: The username that when sent to will prompt an autoresponse.
   • Domain: The desired domain.
   • From: The username that will appear as the sender of the autoresponse.
   • Subject: Subject title of the autoresponse.
   • Body: The message to be included in the autoresponse
   • Start: Date/Time you wish the autorsesponse to start.
   • Stop: Date/Time you wish the autorsesponse to stop.
     
     
5. When the autoresponse form is completed, click Create/Modify.
6. Your autoresponder will now be listed and can be edited/deleted at anytime.