Kathy, If you are getting Mail to check for e-mail regularly while you are away (eg every minute/hour/day), you can set up some RULES to filter your e-mail into different mailboxes.
Start by using RULES to distribute all your mailing list e-mails (e.g. WAMUG) to their own custom mailbox. Once you've filtered out all the mail from users or groups who would not appreciate the bandwidth consumed by a gratuitous "auto out of office reply", then use a final rule to deal with the remaining e-mails by sending them to a custom "Auto reply" mailbox. After the RULE action moving the message, add a second action (within the same RULE) to "SEND REPLY" with the reply message text set to something appropriate like "Out of office until <date>" Alternatively, you could set up an apple script (based on the example supplied in Mail) to parse the e-mail and set up a more complex reply based on the status and/or group of the sender, which will either send back a one liner, or a more comprehensive reply perhaps giving alternative contact details. You could also choose to automatically forward those e-mails (which are more likely to be the ones you would most like to read while you are away, leaving the fantastic WAMUG and similar lists to read on your return) to a web mail address so you don't miss a thing while you're away! All this is documented in the Help for Mail, and the same principles apply to Entourage (my e-mail client du jour). HTH John -- John Winters Phone +61 8 9367 9277 Fax +61 8 9367 9244 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: Kathryn Purvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 12:43:42 +0800 > To: WAMUG Mailing List <[email protected]> > Subject: auto respond in mail > > hi > > I use Mail on OSX and wonder if you can set up out of office reply.... > > any one know? > > regards > > Kathy > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > WAMUG is powered by Stalker CommuniGatePro >
