Google Apps Script Autoreply and Autoforward: Tips and Tricks

As a busy professional or business owner, automating your email responses can help you save time and respond to your clients and colleagues faster. Google Apps Script is a powerful tool that allows you to perform these and many other automation tasks using JavaScript. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use Google Apps Script to automatically forward emails when you reply to them.

Why use Google Apps Script?

Google Apps Script is a cloud-based scripting language that allows you to create and automate various tasks in Google products, including Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, and many others. With Google Apps Script, you can extend the functionality of pre-existing Google Apps, or create your own stand-alone web applications.

One of the many benefits of using Google Apps Script is that it is free, and you can access it right from your Google account. Additionally, it is easy to learn and use, making it the perfect tool for businesses that want to automate their workflows without the need for expensive software or developers.

Getting Started

Before we dive into the code, let’s take a moment to set up our environment. To get started, you’ll need a Gmail account and a basic understanding of JavaScript. Once you have these, follow these steps:

1. Open your Gmail account and click on the gear icon in the top right corner.
2. Select “Settings” from the dropdown menu.
3. Scroll down to the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab.
4. Under the “Forwarding” section, click on the “Add a forwarding address” button.
5. Enter the email address to which you want to forward incoming emails.
6. Click “Next” and then click “Proceed”.
7. Gmail will now send a verification email to the email address you have entered. Click on the verification link to complete the process.

Now that we have set up our forwarding address, we can move on to creating our Google Apps Script.

Creating the Script

1. Open a new Google Sheet and click on the “Tools” menu.
2. Select “Script editor” from the dropdown menu.
3. In the Script editor, give your script a name by clicking on “File” and selecting “Rename”. We will name ours “AutoForwardEmailScript”.
4. Next, copy and paste the following code into the script editor:

   function autoForwardEmails() {
       var label = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName('auto-forward-emails');
       var threads = label.getThreads();
       for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {
           var thread = threads[i];
           var messages = thread.getMessages();
           for (var j = 0; j < messages.length; j++) {
               var message = messages[j];
               if (message.isInReplyTo()) {
                   var from = message.getFrom();
                   var body = message.getBody();
                   var subject = message.getSubject();
                   GmailApp.sendEmail("INSERT FORWARDING EMAIL ADDRESS HERE", subject, from + "\n\n" + body);
                   thread.removeLabel(label);
               }
           }
       }
   }
   

   This code defines a function called “autoForwardEmails” that will search for emails in a specific label called “auto-forward-emails”, and forward them to a specified email address, which we will set shortly. The function then removes the “auto-forward-emails” label from the forwarded email to avoid forwarding it again.

5. Save your script by clicking on “File” and selecting “Save”.

Configuring the Script

Now that we have created the script, let’s configure it so that it works for us.

• In your script editor, click on “Edit” and select “Current project’s triggers”.
• Click the “Add trigger” button in the bottom right corner.
• In the “Run” dropdown menu, select “autoForwardEmails”.
• In the “Events” dropdown menu, select “From Inbox”.
• Click “Save”.

This will set up a trigger that will run the “autoForwardEmails” function whenever a new email arrives in your inbox.

Final Steps

We’re almost done! All that’s left is to test the script and make sure it works.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. In Gmail, open an email and click “Reply”.
2. In the reply window, add the label “auto-forward-emails”.
3. Send the reply.

The script should automatically forward the email to the email address you specified in the code.

Congratulations!

You have now automated your email forwarding process using Google Apps Script. You can customize the code further to add more features and functionality, such as adding a delay before forwarding emails, or adding specific conditions for forwarding emails based on sender or subject.