How to Set Up an Out-of-Office Reply in Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail calls its out-of-office reply a vacation response. You set the dates, write the message, and Yahoo replies for you until the end date. Changes save automatically.

Turn on a vacation response

1. Open Yahoo Mail in a desktop browser.
2. Click the More icon on the left, below your mail folders, then Settings.
3. Click Vacation response.
4. Switch on Turn on vacation response.
5. Under Show vacation response during these dates, choose a start and end date.
6. Type your reply in the Message field.

There’s no Save button — Yahoo saves as you go.

Send a different reply to specific domains

Useful when colleagues should get more detail than everyone else:

1. With the vacation response switched on, select Send a different response to specific domains.
2. Enter up to 2 domains — for example your company’s domain.
3. Type the reply those senders should get in its Message field.

Edit or turn it off

• Edit: make sure Turn on vacation response is on, then change the dates or the message.
• Turn off: switch off Turn on vacation response.

A message you can copy

Thanks for your email. I’m away from [start date] to [end date] with limited access to email, and I’ll reply when I’m back.

For anything urgent, please contact [name] at [address].

For the work-only reply you send to your company’s domain, add more detail:

I’m out of the office from [start date] to [end date]. For [project or area], please contact [name] at [address]; for anything else, I’ll reply when I’m back on [return date].

Keep it short. There’s no need to say where you are or why you’re away — auto-replies go to anyone who writes to you, including people you don’t know.

Before you go

• Send yourself a test from another account to see exactly what people will get.
• Check your filters. A filter that sends mail to a folder or Trash still runs while you’re away.
• Want mail in another inbox instead? Yahoo’s automatic forwarding needs a Yahoo Mail Plus subscription and isn’t offered in every region.

When you’re back

If your end date has passed, the reply stops showing. If you came back early, switch off Turn on vacation response. Then check Spam for anything that was misfiled while you were away — Yahoo deletes Spam after 30 days.

Doing the same in another account? Gmail · Outlook · iCloud Mail.