Looking for an Exclude List on AwayFind

I want to give you a few options for a solution to your problem, but first explain how this is not exactly AwayFind that's causing the difficulty.

AwayFind does not actually filter or auto respond to messages, your own email server does. If you're using Gmail or Microsoft Exchange, then those applications are responsible for sending an auto response message to people. Microsoft Exchange 2007 does provide exclusion functionality, but none of the other popular email servers natively provide this. Not Microsoft Exchange 2003, Gmail, Hotmail, or others.


Thus it's technically not possible for AwayFind to create exclusions since AwayFind is not managing your email. However, there are some easy and slightly more technical workarounds.

The easy workaround is to use a different email address for stuff that you know you don't want an auto response to go to. A few examples of applications of things you could subscribe to a different address to avoid an auto reply:

• Comments to your blog


• Listservs/mailing lists that could potentially reply to all members


• Disqus blog discussions (since they allow replies by email to blog discussions)

If you're worried about having to now check a new account, just set it up so that your primary account checks this new account via POP. Gmail and some other providers don't send auto responses to emails they check via POP.

Here's more on using Gmail with POP: enabling it, then checking it.

Okay, now here are two more technical ways to create filters for Gmail users. One of these options is a hack and the other a pretty good solution. I'd still like to come up with more options, but these should help for now.

Within Gmail, click Create a Filter and enter whatever criteria should prevent an auto response from going out. For instance, enter an email address in the From field for a person who should never receive an auto responder. After entering the criteria for the filter, click Next Step

Now here's where you can either go for the hack or a good solution. The hack is to have the messages you'd like to receive get stored in this Gmail account's Deleted folder (but you might forget and the message will get deleted after 30 days). The good solution is to forward these messages to another email account that you check periodically.

The Hack: On the Choose Action screen, check the box to Delete It
The Good Solution: On the Choose Action screen, check the box to Delete It AND also select to Forward it to another email account that you'll be sure to check for messages

Picture of the Good solution:


For more information on creating Gmail filters, see here or for a video, click here.

(quick explanation: when a message is deleted, Gmail doesn't send an auto response to that sender. So we can either view deleted messages or use the filter above to forward them to an email address we check)

I hope that one of the solutions above helps you to create some exclusions for your AwayFind account. I do however want to point out that in my experience most people are okay with getting an auto responder every once in a while. (I've been using this for about 9 months without complaint), but another alternative is to just use your AwayFind link in your email signature.

Best of luck, Chris, and anyone else who runs into this problem!