Manage automatic reply detection
An out-of-office reply to a closed conversation used to reopen it like any other message — a satisfaction survey sent on close could come back through the queue as a ticket an agent had to read and close again. Settings → Email → Filter now has three switches that let you detect that kind of mail, fold it out of the way in the conversation, and stop it from reopening a closed ticket.
Where to find it
Go to Settings → Email → Filter. This tab used to be called Spam Filter — it has been renamed Filter because it now holds both the spam filter and automatic-reply detection. Both switches exist for the same reason: keeping mail nobody asked to see out of the queue.
The three switches
Detect automatic replies
This is the master switch. It is off by default. With it off, automatic mail is treated exactly like any other inbound message — it lands in the conversation, and it can reopen a closed ticket.
Turn it on and Atender starts recognizing out-of-office replies, bounces, and other machine-generated mail on every email channel in your account.
Collapse them in the conversation
On by default once detection is enabled. When Atender recognizes a message as automatic, it folds it into a single collapsed line in the conversation thread instead of showing it in full. Click the line to expand it if you need to read it.
Keep closed conversations closed
On by default once detection is enabled. Normally, any inbound message on a closed (Done) conversation reopens it. With this switch on, a message Atender has identified as automatic no longer reopens the conversation — it’s recorded, but the ticket stays closed.
Turn detection on without this switch, and automatic mail will still be caught and collapsed, but it will keep reopening closed tickets as before.
What counts as an automatic reply
Atender looks at a narrow, specific set of email headers, not the subject line or body:
- An RFC 3834
Auto-Submittedheader set to anything other thanno. - A bounce — a message with a null envelope sender.
X-AutoreplyorX-Autorespondheaders, which some older autoresponders set on their own.
This is a deliberately narrow test. A wider signal exists internally for silencing automations and the agent stack — it also catches List-Id, List-Unsubscribe, and Precedence: bulk, which cover mailing lists and distribution groups. That wider signal is not what drives collapsing or the reopen guard, because it’s too broad for something an agent can’t see: a message from a Google Group or an M365 distribution list carries those headers too, and it may well be a real person writing in.
It’s account-wide
All three switches apply across every email channel on your account — you can’t turn detection on for one support address and leave it off for another. This matches how the spam filter next to it already works.
How a collapsed reply looks
In the conversation detail, a detected automatic reply appears as a single collapsed line inline in the thread, in place of the full message. Click it to expand and read the message in full.
In the inbox list, a conversation’s preview line skips over a folded reply and shows the most recent non-automatic message instead — so the list doesn’t advertise content the thread itself keeps folded away. If every message in the recent window happens to be automatic, the list falls back to showing the folded line.
A folded reply still updates the conversation’s “last activity” time, so a closed ticket that receives an out-of-office reply will re-sort to the top of your Done view even though it doesn’t reopen. This is expected — the message is real, it’s just been kept out of the queue.
Side conversations
Detection also applies inside side conversations: a reply matching the narrow automatic-reply test is folded the same way the main thread folds it. There’s one distinction worth knowing — if a vendor answers through a distribution list, that reply carries mailing-list headers (caught by the wider signal) but not the narrow automatic-reply signal, so it’s treated as a real reply and reopens the parent side conversation normally. Only mail matching the narrow test (true out-of-office, bounce, or autoresponder headers) is suppressed from reopening.
What’s not covered
A machine-generated reply that doesn’t thread into an existing conversation still opens a new conversation in the queue as normal. Detection and the reopen guard only apply to mail landing on an existing conversation.