Setting An Out-of-Office Reply in 2026
Gary is going on vacation.
Draft 1. Saved 5/4/26, 1:48 p.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from July 1 through July 7 with limited access to email. I will respond to all messages upon my return. For urgent matters, please direct inquiries to Simone Harris, who leads our accounts team.
Best, Gary
Draft 2. Saved 5/27/26, 3:41 p.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from July 1 through July 7 for our annual beach week with my family. This will be our seventh year at the same rental, and my daughter has been marking the days on the kitchen calendar since April. I cannot overstate how much I am looking forward to this week. I will have limited access to email and will respond to all messages upon my return. For urgent matters, please contact Simone Harris.
I hope you can take some time for yourself this summer as well!
Best, Gary
Draft 3. Saved 6/12/26, 8:19 p.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from July 1 through July 7 for our annual week at the beach.
We have rented the same house, the Sandpiper, for seven summers now, and my daughter has taken to calling it “our house,” which neither my wife nor I have corrected. There is a frog that lives under the front porch. She named it last summer and expects it to be there this July. I have not told her how long frogs live because I do not actually know, and I am afraid to look it up. I need this week. I will have limited access to email. For urgent matters, please contact Simone Harris.
Best, Gary
Draft 4. Saved 6/24/26, 10:52 p.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from July 1 through July 7. Given the price of gas right now, we have decided to skip the boat rental this year, so I will actually be available in the afternoons throughout the week. For anything related to the Hartman account, please call my cell directly. For all other matters, please contact Simone Harris.
Gary
Draft 5. Saved 6/26/26, 9:33 p.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from July 1 through July 7, but will be checking email throughout the day and am available for calls. I understand that the Copilot rollout is being expanded while I am away, and I would appreciate being kept in the loop on any changes to my accounts. I have been doing this for eleven years. I know which clients want a phone call and which ones want to be left alone. A chatbot does not know these things. My cell is in the signature.
Gary
Draft 6. Saved 6/29/26, 11:47 p.m.
I WILL BE “OUT OF THE OFFICE” FROM JULY 1 THROUGH JULY 7 IN THE SENSE THAT I WILL BE SITTING IN A RENTAL HOUSE THAT COSTS ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS MORE THAN IT DID LAST YEAR WHILE PAYING FIVE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS A GALLON TO DRIVE NINE HOURS WITH A DOG THAT NEEDS TO GO TO THE BATHROOM EVERY HOUR. I WILL HAVE ACCESS TO EMAIL BECAUSE IT IS 2026 AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LIMITED ACCESS TO EMAIL. YOU CAN REACH ME ANYTIME. I AM ALWAYS REACHABLE. I HAVE BEEN REACHABLE EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR ELEVEN YEARS. THE ALGORITHM CANNOT DO WHAT I DO.
GARY
Draft 7. Saved 6/30/26, 12:04 a.m.
OOO 7/1–7/7.
G
Draft 8. Saved 7/1/26, 6:12 a.m.
Thank you for your email. I will be in the office this week and available at my desk. I am here.
Gary
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Drafts 6 and 7 are my favourites, mainly because they don't say the dreaded 'Thank you for your email' - why are we thanking people for emails, lordy no 😂
Thanks for sharing ☺️🙏🏼
This made me smile because it captures something I’ve noticed as well: the older I get, the less impressed I am by efficiency and the more impressed I am by people who know what they’re optimizing for. The first draft is perfectly professional. The second one tells you something about the person behind the inbox. Suddenly there is a family, a tradition, a daughter counting days on a calendar, and a reminder that work is only one part of a life.
I spent years treating vacations as interruptions between projects. Somewhere along the way I realized the opposite is often true. The projects blur together in memory, while a recurring family trip, a rented house you return to every summer, or a child waiting months for a particular week become the landmarks that actually structure a life. Maybe the best out-of-office message isn’t the one that sounds most professional. Maybe it’s the one that quietly reminds people there is a human being on the other side of the email.