Exchange 2010 – Enable External Automatic Replies

By default, Exchange 2010 doesn’t allow sending automatic forwards, replies and Out of Office Assistant Messages (OOF) to external email addresses. This is mainly for security and performance reasons, as it ensures there can’t be any mail loops or that Exchange doesn’t automatically reply to any spam messages.

With this in mind, you may need to enable this as a part of your system requirements.

The instructions below detail how to enable automatic replied for external email addresses.

Please note, this may open your server and users to unwanted spam. You may want to do this in conjugation with message restrictions to minimise unwanted emails from external email addresses.

How to Enable Automatic Replied for External Email Addresses

1. In the Exchange Management Console, expand the ‘Organization Configuration’ node, and then select the ‘Hub Transport’ node
2. 
3. Right-click on ‘Default’ and choose ‘Properties’
4. On the ‘General’ tab, ensure that ‘Allow external out-of-office messages only’ is selected (if you have legacy Outlook clients you may need to select one of the options below)
5. 
6. On the ‘Message Format’ tab, ensure that ‘Allow automatic replies’ and‘Allow automatic forward’ is enabled
7.