Turn on your vacation responder :

  1. Open Gmail.
  2. Click the gear in the top right.
  3. Select Settings.
  4. Scroll down to the Vacation responder section (stay in the "General" tab).
  5. Select Vacation responder on.
  6. Fill in the date range, subject, and message.
  7. You can limit who can see your vacation response:
    • Check the box next to Only send a response to people in my Contacts if you don't want everyone who emails you to know that you're away from your mail.
    • If you use Google Apps, you'll also see an option to only send a response to people in your domain. If you check both of these boxes, only people who are in your contacts and your domain will receive the automatic response.
  8. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page

Turn off or edit your vacation responder

While the vacation responder is on, you'll see a banner across the top of your Gmail that shows the subject of your vacation response. Click the End now link in the banner to turn off the vacation responder, or click Vacation Settings to edit your response.