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I'm hoping to set up some kind of mail interceptor for a friend who uses his Gmail account for professional purposes. He is working only half-time for 6 months, and is not able to keep up with the mail coming in. Much of the email he receives ought to be handled by someone else.

So what I want to do is create an auto-bounce that anyone who tries to email him will get (probably only the first time) saying, X is on part-time leave, and does this email really need to go to him, and give them a list of other people they should be emailing about various issues that my friend is not handling during his leave. And then give them some way to say "yes, really deliver this message" or to back out and not send it.

I know I have had friends who set things like this up on private email servers, but I can't immediately think of a good way to do it using Gmail. Any thoughts?

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    If you don't get exactly what you want through an "auto-bounce mail interceptor", it's always an option to set up an auto-response message telling the sender that they are currently away, please contact so and so, etc.
    – Nathan Francy
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 6:30
  • He has the auto-response set up, but is still getting hundreds of emails per day that have to be at least skimmed for the important ones. Even if they also contact the person the auto-responder told them too, the initial email lands in the on-leave person's email and there's no way for him to see that it has subsequently been sent to someone else, unlesss they cc him on the new email too, thus increasing the load.
    – PurpleVermont
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 15:26
  • In the "important ones", are there keywords or are sent by particular people? If so, you could make new folders, and apply filters to automatically add these types of emails to the folders. See: wikihow.com/Move-Mail-to-Different-Folders-in-Gmail under "Part 3 of 3". I realize this isn't exactly what you're asking for, but it could help the inbox to be a little more organized at least.
    – Nathan Francy
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 22:47
  • Thanks, we're doing what filtering we can, but were hoping for "more".
    – PurpleVermont
    Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 5:37

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Without using a webmail form of some sort, this really isn't possible, since email is direct traffic. It's just like with snail mail, once its in the mail box, its going to its destination without hesitation or question.

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