topic Re: Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows in Sales Email

Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows

Baileyrl48 — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:43:15 GMT

I want to create a way to identify an auto-reply in Hubspot so we can create a workflow. Currently, we have workflows set so when someone replies to certain sequences specific things happen. We have auto-replies getting put in these workflows and I want to filter them out.

So two options that I am seeing:
1) Is there a way to filter email replies per keyword and add that as a condition to a work flow?
2) Is there a trigger that identifies auto-replies that I could use to create a custom property that would then work as the condition for the other workflows I want to filter them out of?

Or other solutions? It doesn't seem I can create rules around single or multi-checkbox fields, so I can do that to create the right property.

Re: Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows

karstenkoehler — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:59:06 GMT

Hi @Baileyrl48,

What type of auto reply exactly are you referring to? HubSpot automatically attempts to ignore out of office messages I'm the sequences tool: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/sequences/unenroll-from-sequence#out-of-office-replies

If you base whatever automation you have on a contact exiting a sequence instead of the reply itself, you might not even have to go down this rabbit hole.

If you think you do, could you please provide a bit more context regarding your workflow set up?

In general, you can limit enrolment to the contact being associated to an activity of type email with direction incoming and email subject line not containing any of [autoreply keywords], yes. In a contact based workflow, enroll based on 'When filter criteria is met', then change the dropdown from Contact to Activities / Email to access these filters.

Best regards

Re: Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows

Baileyrl48 — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:03:33 GMT

Yes, we have workflows that automatically move prospects to different lead status based on replying to an email, and other fields that are updated. But when an auto-reply is what responds, it is showing them as having replied and updating the lead status when they technically haven't replied.

Ill try the trigger - I wasn't able to find that earlier but that is a bit more clear than other posts I found in the community!

Thank you!

Re: Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows

Baileyrl48 — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 14:07:26 GMT

Thank you. We use a workflow to automate a change in lead status. When someone replies, we change the lead status to "replied" for the Lead Gen team so they can easily filter out prospects from new sequences.

We don't want auto-replies to do this, but I can't figure out a way to filter these out in the workflow using keywords. It seems there are options for marketing emails, but not for sales sequences.

Re: Identifying Auto-Replies from Prospects for Workflows

JTolley — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:12:45 GMT

Hey Bailey,
I think the workflow of identifying auto-replies -> updating a custom property -> filtering on the workflow is a fantastic method - obviously the hardest part here is identifying the auto replies.

The solution I recommend is an AI node - categorising auto-replies is what they do best.
You have a couple of solutions, including the Breeze AI node, the ChatGPT/Anthropic/Gemini nodes.

I also have a workflow app that would be perfect for this usecase.

I'm investigating the other solutions this weekend - but what you'll want to be cognisent of is making sure they play nicely with checkbox properties (for your auto-reply/not auto-reply filtering). If they only return text, then the solution will also require custom-code to force it into the right shape and will hit a higher error rate if the AI decides to get creative.

If you want to chat further - I'd be very intestered into getting into the nitty-gritty of the problem.