Turn Off an Out-of-Office Auto-Responder in iCloud Mail

off switch

Kyle Slattery; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

Once set up, the vacation auto-responder in iCloud Mail has served you well—and the people, too, who emailed you in your absence. Now, of course, that absence has run its course, you are back in full swing, and it is time for the auto-responder to take a leave.

Fortunately, turning off a vacation auto-reply and preventing new replies from being sent is even easier than setting it up was in iCloud Mail. (If you thought of a particularly clever and useful text for your auto-reply, you need not remember or save it elsewhere; iCloud Mail will keep it for the next time you want it to mail automatic replies.)

Example Vacation Auto-Response

For example, you may have a vacation auto-responder set up that sends reply emails stating "I will be out of the office until January 2. If this is an emergency please call 911 (or my manager John Smith at extension 4666). Otherwise, I will respond to your inquiry after I return from my much-needed vacation in the Bahamas." iCloud will preserve this for you and you could use it again next year.

Turn off an Out-Of-Office Auto-Responder in iCloud Mail

To disable a vacation auto-response you have set up in iCloud Mail and prevent further out-of-office messages to be sent in reply to incoming emails:

  • Click the Show Actions menu gear icon near the lower-left corner in the iCloud Mail web interface at icloud.com.
    • If you cannot see the mailbox list and the gear icon at its bottom, click > (Show Mailboxes) near the top left corner of iCloud Mail, at the message list's top.
  • Select Preferences… from the menu that appears.
  • Open the Vacation tab.
  • Make sure Automatically reply to message when they are received. is not checked.
    • iCloud Mail will save your auto-reply message; you can re-use it for a later auto-responder.
  • Click Done.
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