| name | recipe-create-vacation-responder |
| description | Configure or disable Gmail's vacation responder with an exact subject, message, audience, and optional date range. Use when the user asks to enable, change, inspect, or turn off an out-of-office automatic reply. |
Configure a Gmail vacation responder
Use gws-gmail for account selection and Gmail API details.
Workflow
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Read the current settings without changing them:
gws gmail users settings getVacation --params '{"userId":"me"}'
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Resolve the exact subject, plain-text body, audience restrictions, start, end, timezone, and target account. Convert start/end to epoch milliseconds; verify that start precedes end. Omit date fields only when the user intentionally wants the responder enabled without an automatic window.
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Build the update using placeholders rather than copying stale dates:
gws gmail users settings updateVacation \
--params '{"userId":"me"}' \
--json '{"enableAutoReply":true,"responseSubject":"<SUBJECT>","responseBodyPlainText":"<BODY>","restrictToContacts":true,"restrictToDomain":false,"startTime":"<START_EPOCH_MS>","endTime":"<END_EPOCH_MS>"}'
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Run the exact update with --dry-run. Show the user the account, complete subject/body, human-readable local start/end, timezone, and recipient restrictions.
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Ask for explicit confirmation immediately before running the update without --dry-run.
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Read the settings back with getVacation and verify every confirmed field.
Disabling is also a write and requires its own explicit confirmation:
gws gmail users settings updateVacation \
--params '{"userId":"me"}' \
--json '{"enableAutoReply":false}'
Do not assume a prior planned return date is approval to disable the responder later.
