We all look forward to an upcoming vacation, but how many of you continue to receive and address work related requests via email whilst on holidays?
If you truly want a vacation and can leave the work in the office, then you will likely want to set up an auto response with your email provider. Gmail, Hotmail, iCloud, and others offer this solution. In this article we will take a look at how to set it up for users of iCloud Mail.
The only prerequisite to this tip is that you will need to have a free iCloud account. For more information about creating an iCloud account please view the FAQ article HT4436
To begin the auto response setup simply proceed to www.icloud.com on a Mac or PC. Unfortunately, going to this address on your iOS device will only yield basic information about the service and setup details for your device.
Once the iCloud website has loaded, enter your username and password. If you are using a public computer, please don’t select “Keep me signed in”. Also, when you are finished with this process please remember to log out.
Now you will need to click on Mail.
When Mail has opened, you will notice the gear in the top right hand corner of the browser window. Click and select Preferences.
Then navigate to the Vacation tab. All you need to do now is write an auto-response message and add a tick, to the tick box, to activate this functionality. When this process is complete, click done and log out of your iCloud account.
For better or worse, this setup process is rather basic. Other email providers may offer additional options such as start and end dates. Regardless, when you return to work from your well deserved holiday, you will need to log back in and turn this functionality off.
Simply remove the tick from the tick box then log out. You don’t need to delete the message text, but you can if you want. Leaving it there may assist you should your message be generic and you would therefore like to use it on more than one occasion.
If you would like more information on managing your workflow whilst you’re away from the office, please drop into our store to discuss your specific requirements.