InReplyAuto-reply emails: templates, setup, and the AI upgrade (2026)
Ten copy-paste auto-reply templates for out of office, holidays, support and sales, plus how to set them up in Gmail and Outlook. Then the part most guides skip: when an acknowledgment is the wrong tool, and what to use instead.
What an auto-reply email is (and when it is the right tool)
An auto-reply email (also called an automatic email reply, an automated email response, or an auto reply message) is a fixed message your inbox sends on your behalf the moment someone emails you. You write it once; your email provider sends it to anyone who writes in while it is active. No AI involved, no judgement applied: everyone gets the same message.
That fixed, predictable behaviour is exactly why auto-replies are still the right tool in a handful of situations:
- Out of office and holidays. You are genuinely away, nobody is covering your inbox, and senders deserve to know rather than wonder.
- After-hours acknowledgments. A message that arrives at 11pm gets an honest "we open at 9" instead of silence until morning.
- Company closures. Everyone is off for a public holiday or an annual shutdown, so no individual colleague can pick up the slack.
- Receipt confirmations. "We received your support request" or "we received your order" messages, where the sender mainly wants proof the email did not disappear into a void.
The common thread: an auto-reply is for moments when no answer is possible yet and the honest thing to do is say so, warmly and briefly. Here are templates for every one of those moments. Copy, swap the bracketed details, done.
Auto-reply email templates by scenario
Every template below follows the same rules: confirm the message arrived, say when a real reply is coming, give an urgent route if one exists, and stop. None of them apologises for existing, and none of them promises more than it can keep.
Out of office
Subject: Out of office until [date]
Hello, and thanks for your email.
I am out of the office until [date] and checking email only occasionally. I will reply properly once I am back, most likely on [return date].
If it cannot wait, please contact [colleague name] at [email address] and they will help.
Best, [Your name]
Subject: Away until [date]
Thanks for your message. I am away until [date] and not checking email while I am gone.
I will reply as soon as I am back. Thanks for your patience.
[Your name]
After hours
Subject: We got your message
Hi, thanks for getting in touch with [Company].
You have reached us outside our office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm [timezone]). Your message is safely in our queue and we will reply when we open, usually within the first couple of hours.
If this is urgent, call us on [phone number] and leave a voicemail; we check it first thing.
The [Company] team
Holiday closure
Subject: We are closed until [date]
Hello, and thanks for your email.
Our whole team is away for [holiday] from [start date] to [end date], so replies will be slower than usual. We will work through messages in the order they arrived when we reopen on [reopen date].
For anything urgent in the meantime, please call [phone number].
Happy [holiday], the [Company] team
Support request received
Subject: We have your request [reference number]
Hi [first name],
Thanks for contacting [Company] support. Your request has been logged as [reference number] and a member of the team will reply within [one business day].
If you have more detail to add (screenshots, error messages, your order number), just reply to this email and it will be attached to the same request.
The [Company] support team
Sales enquiry
Subject: Thanks for your enquiry
Hi [first name],
Thanks for your interest in [Company]. A real person (usually [name]) will come back to you within [one business day] with answers and next steps.
In the meantime, you might find [pricing page / brochure link] useful; it covers the questions we get asked most.
Speak soon, [Your name]
Maternity or extended leave
Subject: On leave until [month, year]
Hello, and thanks for your email.
I am on [parental] leave until [month, year] and will not be reading email during that time, so please do not wait for a reply from this address.
[Colleague name] ([email address]) has taken over my projects and will be glad to help with anything you need.
Best wishes, [Your name]
Event or conference
Subject: At [event name] this week
Hi, thanks for your message.
I am at [event name] from [start date] to [end date], so I am reading email in short bursts and replying slowly. Expect a proper answer by [date].
If you are at the event too, come and say hello: [stand number / session]. For anything urgent, [colleague name] at [email address] can help.
[Your name]
Order received
Subject: Order [number] received, thank you
Hi [first name],
Thanks for your order. We have received order [number] and it is now being prepared. You will get a separate email with tracking details as soon as it ships, usually within [two business days].
If anything in your order needs changing, reply to this email within [24 hours] and we will sort it before dispatch.
The [Company] team
Generic acknowledgment
Subject: Thanks, we received your email
Hello,
Thanks for writing to [Company]. This is a quick automatic note to confirm your message has arrived; a member of the team will reply within [one business day].
If your question is urgent, call [phone number].
The [Company] team
How to set auto-replies up in Gmail and Outlook
The mechanics differ by provider, and each has quirks worth knowing before you rely on them (Gmail's vacation responder waits days before re-replying to the same sender; Outlook separates internal from external audiences). We keep a dedicated step-by-step guide for each:
- How to set up auto-replies in Gmail: the vacation responder, plus filters and templates for always-on canned replies.
- How to set up auto-replies in Outlook: Automatic Replies in the new Outlook, classic Outlook and Outlook on the web, plus rules.
Pick your provider, follow the steps, paste in a template from above, and you are covered.
Five auto-reply mistakes to avoid
Before the templates go live, a quick pass against the mistakes we see most often:
- Promising a reply speed you cannot keep. "We respond within the hour" feels great to write and terrible to receive when hour three arrives. Quote the slowest time you reliably beat.
- Forgetting to turn it off. An out-of-office still firing a week after you are back reads worse than none at all. Use the scheduled end date in Gmail and Outlook rather than trusting memory.
- Oversharing. Senders do not need to know where you are or why. "Away until Monday" is complete; anything more is for your close colleagues, not every stranger who emails.
- Naming an alternate contact who does not know. If your template routes urgent mail to a colleague, tell the colleague and confirm they are actually in that week.
- Stacking auto-replies on a shared inbox. A support acknowledgment plus a holiday closure plus a personal out-of-office means three robotic emails for one question. Decide which single message a sender should get and suppress the rest.
Avoid those five and an auto-reply will do its modest job well. Which brings us to the part most auto-reply guides never get to.
An acknowledgment is not an answer
Read back through the ten templates above and notice what every single one of them actually says: we got your message, please wait. That is all an auto-reply can say, because it is one fixed message sent to everyone. The customer asking whether you deliver on Saturdays and the customer asking for a refund get the identical reply, and neither of them is any closer to what they wanted.
For a personal inbox during a week off, that is fine; waiting is the honest outcome. But on a business inbox, most incoming email is a question your team has already answered dozens of times: opening hours, pricing, availability, returns, how to book. An auto-reply acknowledges those questions. It resolves none of them. The work, and the customer's wait, are exactly where they were before you set it up.
Saved templates (Gmail calls them templates, Outlook calls them Quick Parts) are half a step better: a human picks the right canned answer and sends it. The answer can be genuinely useful, but a human still has to read every email, choose, personalise and send, so nothing arrives faster than your team does, and anything slightly off-script still means writing from scratch.
The modern third option is a knowledge-grounded AI reply: a response generated per email, built only from information your business has approved (your FAQs, policies, price lists, website), that answers the actual question asked. When the question falls outside what the knowledge covers, the system does not guess; it leaves the email for a human. Here is how the three honestly compare:
| Auto-reply | Saved template | Knowledge-grounded AI reply | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers the customer's actual question | No, same message for everyone | Yes, if a matching template exists and a human picks it | Yes, when the answer is in your knowledge base |
| Sounds like you | Yes, you wrote it (once) | Yes, you wrote them | Yes, tone and rules set by you in playbooks |
| Handles edge cases | No | No, off-script means writing from scratch | Partially: unknowns are flagged for a human, not guessed |
| Needs a human afterwards | Always, for every email | Always, a human picks and sends | Only for what it could not answer, or for every send if you keep drafts-only mode on |
| Risk of a wrong answer | None (it answers nothing) | Low: wrong-template misfires happen | Controlled: replies are grounded in approved knowledge only, and you can require human approval on every send |
| Customer's wait time | Unchanged | As fast as your team | Minutes, around the clock, for covered questions |
The honest summary: auto-replies are risk-free because they do nothing. Templates do something, at the speed of your team. A knowledge-grounded AI reply does the most, and manages its one real risk (a wrong answer) in two ways: it can only say what your approved knowledge says, and you decide whether it sends at all or only drafts for your approval.
Where InReply fits
InReply is our product, so weigh this section accordingly. It is the third column of that table, built to live inside the inbox you already have: it connects to your existing Gmail or Outlook inbox via OAuth, so there is nothing to install, no new app for your team to adopt, and no helpdesk to migrate to. It works like an email answering service staffed by an AI email agent that only ever answers from a knowledge base you control.
The safety rails are the point. Ghost Mode, available on every plan, keeps the AI drafts-only: it writes the reply, you approve every send, exactly the control an auto-reply user is used to. When a playbook has earned your trust, you can enable Autopilot for it and those replies go out automatically. Playbooks control tone, behaviour and routing per type of email, and anything the knowledge base cannot answer lands on an actions list that flags what needs a human, with urgent items called out. Team members get per-inbox access, plans cover 1, 3, 5 or unlimited inboxes, and pricing is a flat £39, £79 or £149 per month (custom above that) for 500, 2,000, 5,000 or 10,000+ credits per workspace, not per seat. There is a 14-day free trial with no card required, so the sensible move is the same as with any template above: try it on your own inbox and judge the replies yourself.
To be clear about the division of labour: keep an auto-reply for genuine closures and leave, when nobody (human or AI) will be making decisions. For the everyday flow of answerable questions on a business inbox, an acknowledgment is no longer the ceiling.
Auto-reply email FAQs
What should an auto-reply email say? +
A good auto-reply covers four things in under five sentences: confirmation that the message arrived, when the sender can realistically expect a proper reply, what to do if the matter is urgent (a phone number or an alternate contact), and a warm sign-off. Skip apologies and long explanations; the sender mostly wants to know their email did not vanish and when to expect an answer.
Are auto-reply emails unprofessional? +
No, the opposite. Silence is what reads as unprofessional. A short, honest auto-reply sets expectations and shows the sender their message landed. What does read poorly is an auto-reply that overpromises ("we'll get back to you shortly" followed by three days of nothing) or one so long and legalistic that it feels like a wall. Keep it short, keep the promise you make in it, and it will only help.
What is the difference between an auto-reply and an AI reply? +
An auto-reply is one fixed message sent to everyone: it acknowledges the email but answers nothing. An AI reply is generated per email, based on what the sender actually asked, and (in a knowledge-grounded system) built only from information your business has approved. The auto-reply says "we got your message"; the AI reply says "here is your answer". The first buys time, the second removes the wait entirely for questions your knowledge base covers.
Can Gmail send automatic replies to every email? +
Yes, in two ways. The built-in vacation responder replies to everyone while it is switched on (with a repeat-sender cooldown), and Gmail filters combined with templates can send a canned reply to messages matching criteria you set, even while you are at your desk. Both have quirks worth knowing before you rely on them; our Gmail auto-reply guide walks through each setup step by step.
How do I set up automatic replies in Outlook? +
Outlook's Automatic Replies feature (often still called Out of Office) lives in Settings and lets you schedule a start and end time, write separate messages for people inside and outside your organisation, and restrict external replies to your contacts. Rules can extend it further. Our Outlook auto-reply guide covers the new Outlook, classic Outlook and Outlook on the web.
Should a business use an auto-reply for every customer email? +
A receipt-style acknowledgment on a shared support or sales inbox is reasonable: it confirms delivery and sets expectations. But if most of your inbound email asks questions your team answers the same way every week, an acknowledgment is leaving the real work on the table. That is the case for pairing a simple auto-reply (for the edge cases) with knowledge-grounded AI replies that resolve the common questions outright, with a human approving or handling the rest.
Bottom line
Auto-replies still matter: when you are away or closed, a short, warm, honest acknowledgment is the professional thing to send, and the ten templates above will cover almost every situation. Just be clear-eyed about what they are. Every auto-reply is a promise to answer later. If your inbox is full of questions your business has already answered a hundred times, the upgrade is not a better acknowledgment; it is a reply that answers.
Your auto-reply says wait. InReply answers.
Replies grounded in your own knowledge base, drafted for your approval in Ghost Mode or sent on Autopilot when you allow it. Works inside your existing Gmail or Outlook inbox.