| Whether you are responding to the same type
of e-mail on a daily basis or you would just like to add an
automatic response to e-mails sent to a specific domain address,
you can accomplish such a task using the "autoresponder".
An autoresponder will send a standard response e-mail message
(based on a text file you specify) to anyone who sends an e-mail
to a specific e-mail address (which you specify) at your domain.
Each of our hosting plans allow you to set up a specific number of
autoresponders for free. You can set up additional autoresponders
for a small additional charge of $1.00/month per autoresponder.
How to set up an
autoresponder:
- Create a plain text file which contains
the message you wish to have automatically sent (e.g.
sales_request_response.txt) and upload it to your domain in
ASCII mode via FTP.
- Use your Web browser to go to the E-mail
Settings section of your account Control Panel (go to
yourdomain.com/stats/ and enter your userID and password,
click on E-mail Settings and re-enter your userID and password
if requested). This page allows you to set your e-mail
forwarding, POP accounts, and
autoresponders for your account.
- Go to the 'Autoresponders' section of
your E-mail Settings page. It will look like this:
- Under the "@your_domain"
heading, enter the e-mail address at your domain which is
intended to invoke the autoresponder. For example, if you want
an autoresponse message sent to anyone who sends an e-mail to
"info@yourdomain.com", you would enter
"info". When a user sends an e-mail message to this
address (info@yourdomain.com) the autoresponder will
automatically reply with the message you specify.
- Under the "File to send"
heading, enter the location of the text file you uploaded in
step 1 which contains the autoresponse message. The text in
this file will be sent in an e-mail message to whomever sends
an e-mail to the address you specified in step 4. Be sure to
enter the complete path to the file relative to your home
directory (example: /subdir/mystuff/services.txt). If you
uploaded the file to the main level of your account (the
'root') you would just enter the name of the file, since the
file is not located within any subdirectories.
- Under the "Reply to" heading,
enter the e-mail address from which you want to have your
autoresponse message appear to be coming. This address will
appear in the 'From:' heading in the autoresponse e-mail. If
the user replies to the autoresponse message, the reply will
be sent to this e-mail address.
- Under the "Who to Notify"
heading, enter the e-mail address of someone you want to have
receive a copy of the original incoming e-mail message that
invoked the autoresponder. The incoming e-mail message will be
forwarded to this address and your automated response will be
sent back to the sender. If you leave this field
blank, the incoming email message will be discarded.
In the above example, any person who sends
an e-mail to "info@yourdomain.com" will receive an
auto-response via e-mail which contains the message from the file
named "services.txt". If the recipient replies to the
auto-response, their reply will be delivered to the address
"sales@your_domain". Also, a copy of the original
incoming e-mail will be sent to "bob@somedomain.com".
Adding a Subject: line
Most e-mail messages you
receive have the following header information: (To: From:
Subject:). To specify a subject, you can simply add a line at the top
of the autoresponder message text file (step 1) that reads:
Subject: Information about our services
You would replace 'Information about our
services' with whatever subject you want to have for the
autoresponse e-mail.
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