How can I send conditional email auto replies?
December 27, 2010 12:45 PM Subscribe
Can anyone point me to a "conditional email auto responder" service that would allow me to program the keyword and the auto reply to be sent?
Example: If I receive an email with the keyword "POTATO" in the subject line and/or email message body, auto reply "A" is sent out.
If I receive an email with the keyword "PEACH" in the subject line and/or email message body, auto reply "B" is sent out. ETC....
Does anything like that exist as a stand alone service? Obviously the auto responder should be flexible in that I can program the keywords (what it is looking for) and the auto-responses (what reply(ies) should be sent out)...
Alternatively, if you know of another way to accomplish the same thing that doesn't use an auto responder, please let me know.
Example: If I receive an email with the keyword "POTATO" in the subject line and/or email message body, auto reply "A" is sent out.
If I receive an email with the keyword "PEACH" in the subject line and/or email message body, auto reply "B" is sent out. ETC....
Does anything like that exist as a stand alone service? Obviously the auto responder should be flexible in that I can program the keywords (what it is looking for) and the auto-responses (what reply(ies) should be sent out)...
Alternatively, if you know of another way to accomplish the same thing that doesn't use an auto responder, please let me know.
Depends on how nerdy you want to get. If you've got a mail+web-hosting service that gives you shell access, you may be able to do this in procmail, which is a program that runs on the server, intercepts incoming e-mail, and lets you do interesting things with it--running auto-responders like you describe is one of the simpler tricks it can do.
Procmail is kind of arcane (I managed to use it to do a few simple things), but it's very powerful.
If you are willing to do this through a client-side e-mail program, you might have some easier options. This would be easy with Apple's Mail.app, for example. You'd set up a rule something like this:
If all the following conditions are met:
Recipient: [auto-responder address]
Subject: [keyword 1]
Then
Reply to message with [message text]
Set up rules like this for each keyword and you're done. I'd be surprised if MS Entourage couldn't do something equivalent. You'd obviously need A) a new auto-responder account or alias; B) to set up your client to check this account (if it's a separate account); C) to have the client running all the time, and a full-time Internet connection.
posted by adamrice at 1:02 PM on December 27, 2010
Procmail is kind of arcane (I managed to use it to do a few simple things), but it's very powerful.
If you are willing to do this through a client-side e-mail program, you might have some easier options. This would be easy with Apple's Mail.app, for example. You'd set up a rule something like this:
If all the following conditions are met:
Recipient: [auto-responder address]
Subject: [keyword 1]
Then
Reply to message with [message text]
Set up rules like this for each keyword and you're done. I'd be surprised if MS Entourage couldn't do something equivalent. You'd obviously need A) a new auto-responder account or alias; B) to set up your client to check this account (if it's a separate account); C) to have the client running all the time, and a full-time Internet connection.
posted by adamrice at 1:02 PM on December 27, 2010
Gmail has this.
You'll have to enable the "Canned Response" Gmail Labs extension, but then you can configure filters (based on from, subject line, words in body, etc) to fire off a specific canned response.
posted by mumkin at 1:09 PM on December 27, 2010 [1 favorite]
You'll have to enable the "Canned Response" Gmail Labs extension, but then you can configure filters (based on from, subject line, words in body, etc) to fire off a specific canned response.
posted by mumkin at 1:09 PM on December 27, 2010 [1 favorite]
Thunderbird has a "Reply with template" option in its Message Filters.
posted by rhizome at 2:26 PM on December 27, 2010
posted by rhizome at 2:26 PM on December 27, 2010
I use procmail for this type of thing. As others have said, it's very powerful but pretty arcane. I've been programming and using UNIX for a long time but I still can't write a procmail rule of any complexity without looking at the documentation.
Fortunately, there are lots of procmail examples and tutorials on the Web so even a beginner can find something that's close to what's desired, copy and modify it slightly without having to understand all the details.
adamrice's suggestion about Mail.app would work if you have a Mac, but this is a "client side" solution, which means it will only work when your computer is on, your mail program is running and you have an active connection to the internet. Running something "server side" (e.g. procmail) doesn't require these things of your workstation/laptop and therefore might be a more flexible solution.
posted by tomwheeler at 2:42 PM on December 27, 2010
Fortunately, there are lots of procmail examples and tutorials on the Web so even a beginner can find something that's close to what's desired, copy and modify it slightly without having to understand all the details.
adamrice's suggestion about Mail.app would work if you have a Mac, but this is a "client side" solution, which means it will only work when your computer is on, your mail program is running and you have an active connection to the internet. Running something "server side" (e.g. procmail) doesn't require these things of your workstation/laptop and therefore might be a more flexible solution.
posted by tomwheeler at 2:42 PM on December 27, 2010
Please don't take this as snarky, but the name for this is merely "autoresponder" and there are online services galore -- this is primarily a marketing tool and as such there's money in it. The problem is usually finding one that doesn't want to insert its own ads into the replies you send, or that you trust isn't a spam outfit.
The next step up is software/sites under the moniker "contact manager". Ultimately the top end is systems like Salesforce.com.
Perhaps if you were more specific about your needs, or your platform capability, we could be more specific. But obviously this is something that's able to be done in a multiplicity of ways.
posted by dhartung at 6:04 PM on December 27, 2010
The next step up is software/sites under the moniker "contact manager". Ultimately the top end is systems like Salesforce.com.
Perhaps if you were more specific about your needs, or your platform capability, we could be more specific. But obviously this is something that's able to be done in a multiplicity of ways.
posted by dhartung at 6:04 PM on December 27, 2010
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I don't know of any canned solutions for this, however.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:54 PM on December 27, 2010