How to set up Autoresponders in your cPanel

This article is part of a series that I have been producing on some of the tools that lie hidden in cPanel. cPanel is, without a doubt, the most popular web hosting administrative panel that you will be able to find out there. My own web host, InterServer, uses this tool, which is great. I have had experience with cPanel over the years and do not have to fumble around while learning new things. The thing about cPanel, however, is that it is one of the most neglected gems that can be found out there.  I have already written an article in which I outline how to create email forwarders in your site’s Webmail. This post looks at how you can set up autoresponders in cPanel.

Setting up Autoresponders in cPanel

Here is what you need to do in order to set up autoresponders in cPanel;

• Log into your site’s cPanel. For me, this is a rather roundabout process, but, eventually, I get there.
• Scroll down to the Email section.
• Click on “Autoresponders,” and you will be taken to the screen in the image above.
• Click on “Add Autoresponder,”
• In the next screen, choose your “Interval;” the number of hours between responses to the same email address.
• Insert the email address from which you wish autoresponders to be send.
• Fill in the “From,” and “Subject” sections. In my case, its from “Network Bees,” and the “Subject” is “Message Received.”

cPanel Autoresponder Shortcuts

The following tags can be used to insert information into the response email when configuring an autoresponder in cPanel:

%subject%
    The subject of the message sent to the autoresponder.
%from%
    The name of the sender of the message received by the autoresponder, if available.
%email%
    The incoming email sender’s address.

Example Autoresponder Message

Below is an example of an autoresponder message that I have set up on my site;

Thank you %from% for getting in touch with Network Bees on the subject %subject%. We will get back to you as soon as possible on your email address %email%. We usually respond to each email within 24 hours.

Network Bees

Start and Stop

Autoresponders in cPanel can be setup to either start immediately or at some custom time. You can also choose the duration to which you want yours to run. When you are done, click on the “Create/Modify” button. As you can see in the screenshot below, my autoresponder has been successfully  setup.

Testing

In order to test the autoresponder that I have set up in cPanel, I sent out an email to admin@networkbees.com using my Gmail account. The autoresponse came in only a few minutes later. Below is the message that I received;

Message Received

NetworkBees <admin@networkbees.com>

9:12 AM (2 minutes ago)

Thank you XXXXXXXX <xxxxxx@gmail.com> for getting in touch with Network Bees on the subject Nice Blog. We will get back to you as soon as possible on your email address  <xxxxxx@gmail.com>. We usually respond to each email within 24 hours.

Network Bees

Conclusion

I promised a while back that I would unravel all the mysteries that lie hidden in cPanel. Stay tuned for more on some of these tools, most of which you can use without having to pay additional money. I have already written an article in which I talk about checking your site’s ranking statistics using AwStats, another of the tools that can be found in cPanel. There are many more tools that can be found in cPanel, and I will be looking at each of them.