How to set up an auto-reply in Gmail (2026 guide)

A quick map before the steps. Use the vacation responder when the honest answer to every email is "I'm not here". Use Templates with a filter when a predictable slice of your mail deserves the same acknowledgement every time. Use an AI reply agent when the emails are customers asking real questions and a canned line would make things worse. This article is the Gmail chapter of our wider guide to auto-reply email; using Outlook instead? See the Outlook auto-reply guide.

Method 1: the vacation responder (out of office)

The vacation responder is Gmail's built-in out-of-office reply: one message, sent automatically to people who email you while it is switched on. Steps below are from Google's official help article ("Send an automatic reply when you're out of office", retrieved 25 July 2026):

1. Open Gmail on your computer.
2. In the top right, click the Settings gear, then See all settings.
3. On the General tab, scroll to the Vacation responder section.
4. Select Vacation responder on.
5. Set the date range, then write a subject line and your message.
6. Optionally tick the box to send the reply only to people in your contacts.
7. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.

Useful details from the same article: the reply starts at 12:00 AM on your start date and ends at 11:59 PM on your end date, unless you end it earlier. While it is on, Gmail shows a banner across the top of your inbox with an End now link. If the same person emails you again after four days and the responder is still on, they receive the reply again; if you edit the message in the meantime, they get the updated version. Mail that lands in spam, or is addressed to a mailing list you subscribe to, never gets the reply. The article also covers the Gmail app on Android and iPhone, where the same setting is available; follow the device tabs there for the exact taps.

Now the honest limits. The vacation responder sends one message, the same message, to every sender. There are no conditions beyond the optional contacts-only switch: you cannot send one reply to customers and another to suppliers, and you cannot scope it to certain subjects. Most importantly, it announces absence rather than answering anything. The customer who asked about your refund policy learns only that you are away; the question is still sitting there when you get back.

Method 2: Templates plus filters (auto-send a saved reply)

Gmail Templates (formerly canned responses) let you save a pre-written email, and a filter can send that template automatically to incoming mail that matches your criteria. This is the closest Gmail gets to a year-round auto-reply. Steps are from Google's Templates help article ("Create a template in Gmail", retrieved 25 July 2026). Note that Google states templates can only be turned on and used from Gmail on a computer.

Step 1: enable Templates.

1. In Gmail on your computer, click the Settings gear, then See all settings.
2. At the top, click the Advanced tab.
3. Next to Templates, click Enable.
4. At the bottom, click Save Changes.

Step 2: save a template.

1. Click Compose and write the reply you want to reuse.
2. At the bottom of the compose window, click More options (the three dots), then Templates.
3. Click Save draft as template, then Save as new template.

Step 3: create a filter that sends it.

1. In the search box at the top of Gmail, click Show search options.
2. Enter your criteria: a To address, a From domain, subject keywords, or words the email contains.
3. Click Create filter.
4. Tick Send template and choose your template.
5. Click Create filter to save it.

From then on, every incoming email that matches the filter gets the template as an automatic reply. One housekeeping note from the same article: once you delete a template you cannot recover it, so keep a copy of anything you worked hard on.

The limits here are structural. Filters match crude criteria: addresses, subjects, keywords. They cannot tell an angry complaint from a compliment that shares a word, so everyone who matches gets the identical reply, and it is easy to misfire: a too-broad filter will cheerfully send your "thanks for your order" template to a supplier invoice. And like the vacation responder, a template still cannot answer the customer's actual question. It buys you an acknowledgement, not an answer.

Method 3: an AI reply agent

The third option is a different kind of tool. An AI reply agent reads each incoming email, works out what is being asked, and writes a specific answer from your business knowledge: your pricing, policies, FAQs and documents. When it does not know the answer, it says nothing and leaves the email for a human instead of guessing. That is the difference in one line: methods 1 and 2 send the same message to everyone; method 3 answers the question in front of it.

This is where our product, InReply, fits, so weigh what follows accordingly. InReply connects to your existing Gmail inbox via Google OAuth: nothing to install, no new app for your team to adopt, no helpdesk to migrate to. Replies are grounded in a knowledge base you control, and anything the agent cannot answer confidently lands on an actions list for a human, with urgent items flagged. Every plan starts in Ghost Mode: the agent only saves drafts, and you approve every send until you trust it. When you do, Autopilot can send automatically for the playbooks you choose, and playbooks control tone, behaviour and routing per topic. Plans are flat workspace pricing rather than per-seat, from £39 a month with a 14-day free trial and no card required. More on how it works in our guide to AI email assistants for Gmail.

Which one should you use?

The short version: going on holiday, use the vacation responder. Sending the same acknowledgement to a predictable stream of mail, use a template filter, and watch it for misfires in the first week. Running a business inbox where customers expect answers, not acknowledgements, that is the job auto-replies were never built for, and the reason AI reply agents exist as a category.