[How To] setting up an Autoresponder with Googles Gmail

Thanks guys for looking into this! No dice here too.

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Subject: [CodeCanyon] Message sent via your marketplace profile from SENDER
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and gmail autoresponder (canned response)

Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:13:01 -0700
From: "dtbaker" <info+canned.response@dtbakersrealemailaddresshere>
To: bounce-md_30000325.51497d9b.v1-0e9b82a2272d4a39bb27402a801a4fef@mail111.us4.mandrillapp.com
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Subject: Re: [CodeCanyon] Message sent via your marketplace profile from SENDER

issue dating back to 2009. seems google canned responses will send to the “return-path” no matter what.

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/JL2ADgXVePc

If the “return-path” isn’t configurable when sending email via mandrill then please let us know and I’ll setup another system for autoreponders (eg: a script to import via pop3 and send a custom reply that way).

edit: just did a quick google search and it seems return-path is not configurable, mandrill sets this so they can determine delivery rates / spam etc… Will set up a 3rd party auto-reply script for contact forms shortly.

edit again: this should probably be advertised in some way to other authors (ie: “Hey guys, we’ve changed our mail backend so it’s more reliable with our huge number of authors. If you have setup email auto-replies from your profile please confirm they still work.) I didn’t know mine were broken until reading this thread, I saw the archived messages + replies in gmail and thought it was all still working.

Cheers guys! Dave

Thanks Dave for the follow up!

I’m interrested in your script as well so if you might share it

@devs please allow us to define more email addresses for different purpose:

• profile messages
• system messages (approval, withdraw, purchases,...)
• forum messages (for forum replies)

This would make life much more easier

zendesk ? not free but $20 per year isn’t really that much. You can use a gmail filter to forward support mails to your zendesk account which will take care of the autoresponder stuff.

BF

Hi folks, it doesn’t look like we can set the Return-Path header via Mandrill, as they use this for their bounce tracking. We’ll file a support a ticket with them to check if this is possible, but in the meantime, there’s nothing much we can do about this quickly.

It’s unfortunate that Google uses Return-Path instead of Reply-To, but it doesn’t look like that’ll be changed any time soon. dtbaker’s new script is sounding like a great plan

I’ve noted the request for different author email addresses, but I’m not sure if it would help in this case?

Darn… this has been a big headache since I’ve been on vacation and none of those auto-responses have been delivered. Sucks to be stuck between two “won’t-fix”es (Google and Mandrill). Though if Mandrill is receiving a response to the return-path that isn’t a bounce, shouldn’t they be forwarding it to the appropriate reply-to email? Or is there no differentiation between a bounce and a reply? Then again, it seems like Google should at least offer the option to respond to the reply-to field instead.

I know this isn’t an immediate solution, but I wonder if in the future Envato could offer the option to simply POST the contact form data to a remote URL (specified by the author) as an alternative to email – this would make it much easier for authors to write their own solutions for handling correspondence and hooking into custom forums, support ticket systems, sending intelligent auto-replies, etc. It could go a long way to unifying support and help out both authors and customers. Just a thought – could be a terrible idea haha

I just noticed we’re having issues with zendesk too: since envato switched to mandrill, all mails coming from our profile form and routed to zendesk are being marked as “Automated response email” and suspended.

i believe the issue relates to “List-Unsubscribe” header.

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsubscribe-md_30000325.514c8419.v1-2608fa9c46674491888bf0e13ec84f51@mailin1.us2.mcsv.net?subject=unsub>

pixelentity said
i believe the issue relates to “List-Unsubscribe” header.

The List-Unsubscribe header is optional and just a good idea to standardize the unsubscribe progress: http://www.list-unsubscribe.com

revaxarts said
The List-Unsubscribe header is optional and just a good idea to standardize the unsubscribe progress: http://www.list-unsubscribe.com

It makes sense for mailing lists / newsletters but messages from buyers sent via our profile forms are none of them. Problem for us is that zendesk detects that header and suspends the tickets because it believes it’s a newsletter welcome mail.

BF

I didn’t get anywhere near finished on this script.

Here is half an hour worth of code copy&paste from other projects:

https://github.com/dtbaker/php-gmail-auto-reply

It’s nasty, it works, it sends autoreplies, and it can BCC your gmail account so that the autoreply sits in threaded view like the old canned responses do.

I’m heading on holidays this week so will be using this autoreply script, but wont have time to finish it off.

todo:

• re-write everything after line 130
• include a SMTP sending script so that replies go back through your google account correctly (at the moment it just uses php mail()

if you do use this, please modify the hard coded mail() stuff after line 130, it’s setup with my email address etc.. hardcoded in there.

Feel free to fork, modify or even do a pull request, just don’t push your gmail password back to github lol

Great stuff Dave!

I’ll check that out and going to add phpMailer and an external template file with placeholders so we can changing the layout is easier