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With technology making it possible for us to stay connected wherever we go, it is hard to stay away from our emails when we are on vacation. However, by using some of Microsoft Outlook's advanced features, you can let Outlook respond to your emails while you take a well-deserved vacation.

Of course, Outlook may not be able to send personalized messages to the senders as you would. Nevertheless, for every email sent during the period that you will be away, Outlook can respond with a message that is hand-crafted by you. It will essentially inform all the senders that you are away and not able to respond to your mails. Ideally, your message should also mention when you are expected to be back and respond to the mails yourself. This procedure is known as setting up an autoresponder in Outlook.

In order to set up the autoresponder function in Outlook, we will first need to create the message that you would like to be sent automatically to all those who write in to you when you are on leave. Before you beginning creating the message, make sure that you have not enabled Word as your email editor. You can now select File -> New and choose a New Mail Message. In your message, mention why you are unable to respond personally and when you might be expected to actually answer your mails (you might need a few days after you return to actually go through the entire backlog of emails and start responding). Now either click on 'Office' or use File -> Save As and choose Outlook Template under 'Save as Type'. Give a name for this template and save it.

We now need to set up the autoresponder rule that will send out this message to every person who sends you a mail. Go the main Outlook menu and select Tools -> Rules and Alerts. Under 'New Rule', you can decide if you would like Outlook to respond to all incoming mail with this message or to only those that are specifically addressed to you. Next, under 'Select action(s)', you can check 'Reply using a specific template' and choose the template that you have created earlier. Give a name for this rule.

If you have set up autoresponders before but find that your archived files are damaged or corrupt for some reason, you do not have to go to the trouble of creating the message all over again. Simply use Advanced Outlook Repair from DataNumen to fix PST files. Advanced Outlook Repair allows you to fix PST files with a simple click of a button so that you can remain assured of never losing your mails or templates, no matter when you have archived them.

As you would imagine, once you enable the autoresponder, all the incoming mails that are addressed to you will immediately receive an answer and the people writing to you will know why you have not written to them personally and when they can expect to hear from you, instead of being left in the dark about why you have not responded.