---
title: "auto-responder"
source: https://dev.pageseeder.com/guide/configuration/emails/templates/auto-responder.html
description: "Documents the auto-responder template in PageSeeder, explaining how it prevents email loops from vacation messages, configurable limits and warnings, email headers, and the XML structure used for XSLT processing."
last_updated: 2026-08-11T16:00:37+10:00
tokens: ~610
---

# auto-responder template

Sometimes poorly configured email software leads AutoResponders like *vacation* to loop. This happens when out-of-office messages get relayed to member accounts that spawn more out-of-office messages. To avoid this traffic, there is a configurable limit for the number of comments a user can post to a given location over a configurable period of time.

Once that limit has been reached, PageSeeder sends a warning to the sender for each email. After a configurable number of warnings any further emails are ignored and nothing is returned to the sender.

## Configuration

The auto responder limits, waiting time and number of warnings can be configured with the `autoResponderLimit`, `autoResponderReplyLimit`, `autoResponderMinutes` and `autoResponderWarings` [Global Properties](/guide/configuration/properties/global_properties.md).

## Email headers

This message sets the following headers by default:

| Name | Value |
| --- | --- |
| `Auto-Submitted` | `auto-generated` |
| `From` | `PageSeeder (DO NOT REPLY) <pageseeder@emaildomain>` |
| `Subject` | `WARNING: Comment limit reached` |
| `To` | Email address of original author |

PageSeeder also adds the following non-standard email header:

`com.pageseeder.mail.Bounce` set to `true`.

## XML

PageSeeder produces the following XML for the XSLT template:

```xml

<notification template="auto-responder"
              emaildomain="example.org"
              hosturl="https://example.org">

  <!-- Auto responder settings -->
  <autoresponder limit="25"
                 minutes="90"
                 replylimit="10"
                 warnings="5" />

  <!-- The comment that triggered the auto responder notification -->
  <comment id="123"
           contentrole="Comment"
           created="2012-03-08T12:34:00+10:00"
           status="Open">
    <title>Cavern stolen!</title>
    <author id="12"
            firstname="John"
            surname="Jones"
            email="jjones@email.com"
            username="jjones">
      <fullname>John Jones</fullname>
    </author>
    <content type="text/plain">Sesame opened the door</content>
    <!-- Context may contain group or uri -->
    <context>
      <group id="3"
             name="acme-test"/>
    </context>
  </comment>
</notification>
```

### Usual content

Following is a screenshot of the HTML email:

![auto-responder\_v60000.png](/content/images/email/auto-responder_v60000.webp)