How to Setup your Out of Office (OOO) with Holiday Backlog

One of the ways to truly enjoy your holiday break is to escape the dread of returning to work and finding an avalanche of emails in your inbox. I explain how to set up an Out-of-office reply that will also divert all incoming email away from your inbox to another folder while you are on holiday. That way, you can start the new working year feeling calm and in control of your inbox and then work through the holiday backlog at your leisure. See below details on how to set this up for both Outlook (recording) and Gmail (screenshots).

Out of Office (OOO) with Holiday Backlog rule for Outlook Users

Check out this 5 minute tutorial on setting up your Out of Office (OOO) with holiday backlog rule for Outlook users that I did on my Dr Email Q&A Forum in Dec 2022.

Out of Office (OOO) with Holiday Backlog rule for Gmail Users

Gmail users will need to set up a separate ‘Vacation responder’ (under the General tab) and then a Filter based on emails sent to your address. Turn both of these on when you go on holiday and then turn them both off when you return.