Autoresponders
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.
- Optionally, 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.
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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