Cold email reply sorter: interested, not now, out of office with return dates, referrals
In short: Reads a reply export (sender, reply text, date), cuts off the quoted history and sorts each reply by phrase rules: interested, referral, not now, out of office with the return date, left the company, not interested, unsubscribe or bounce. Addresses written in replies come out as new contacts. Limit: Rule-based: sarcasm, mixed messages ("not now, but send pricing") and replies in other languages can land in the wrong category or in Needs a read.
Upload a reply export with the sender's email and the reply text. Each reply's own words, quoted history removed, are matched against phrase rules: interested, referral, not now, out of office (with the return date when it says one), left the company, not interested, unsubscribe and bounce. Addresses written in a reply come out as new contacts to check.
Price: this tool is free. Checking a whole email list is from $9/mo, and the first 100 checks are free with Google, no card. See pricing
Sample result
"Out of the office until Monday, November 17": out of office, resume on 18 November.
- Reply
- [email protected]
- Back on
- 2026-11-17
- New contact
- [email protected]
What this means for you
The colleague named in the reply comes out as a new contact to check before you email them.
- Instantly, Smartlead or EmailBison export
- Quoted history cut off first
- Return dates from OOO replies
- Referrals as new contacts
- Interested
- OOO
- Referral
By SimpleVerifier Team · Last updated · Runs in your browser; nothing you paste is sent to us
How do I add the referrals and replacements to a sequence?
- Download the new contacts found in replies.
- Upload them at /verify for a live mailbox check; addresses typed by hand in a reply often carry a typo or a guessed format. The first 100 email checks are free with a Google sign-in, no card.
- Add the valid ones to a sequence that mentions who referred you, and load the suppression file into every tool you send from.
How do I sort out-of-office and referral replies from a cold campaign?
- Export the replies from your sequencer's inbox (Instantly Unibox, Smartlead Master Inbox, EmailBison replies) or a mailbox, with the sender's email, the reply text and, if you can, the subject and date.
- Upload or paste the CSV. Set the day to use for replies without a date, and whether dates like 03/11 are day first.
- Press Sort replies. Filter by category, and read the Needs a read rows yourself.
- Download the out-of-office leads with return dates, the new contacts and the suppression file; check the new contacts before they go into a sequence.
Example
- You enter
- A 7-row reply export (from_email, subject, reply_text, date): a pricing question, an automatic reply "out of the office until Monday, November 17 ... contact [email protected]", "no longer with Example Org. Please reach out to [email protected]", "Not right now ... Check back in Q2", "Please remove me", "not the right person ... [email protected]" and "No thanks".
- You get
- Interested 1, Out of office 1 (return date 2026-11-17), Left the company 1, Not now 1, Unsubscribe 1, Referral 1, Not interested 1. New contacts:
[email protected],[email protected]and[email protected]. Suppression file: the unsubscribe and the person who left. - Limits
- Runs in your browser with no row cap; an uploaded file can be up to 25 MB.
How are the replies sorted?
By phrase rules, in a fixed order, and the first match wins: delivery failures first ("address not found", mailer-daemon), then unsubscribe requests, then left-the-company notices, then out-of-office replies, then referrals ("reach out to", "not the right person"), then not now ("next quarter", "check back"), not interested, and interested. The quoted email under the reply is cut off first, so your own pitch never counts as the lead's words.
It is rule-based, not a model, so it is fast, runs in your browser and does the same thing every time; a reply that matches nothing is marked Needs a read instead of guessed. Sarcasm, mixed replies and other languages need a person.
What should you do with out-of-office replies?
Pause the lead and resume after the return date rather than letting the next step land in a full inbox. Auto-replies are defined in RFC 3834, and most sequencers stop a lead on any reply, which is why out-of-office leads quietly fall out of campaigns. The sorter reads return dates such as "back on Monday, November 17", "until 17 Nov" or "returning 11/17", and "back Monday" as the next Monday after the reply.
Out-of-office and left-company notices often name a colleague. Those addresses come out as new contacts, with the reply they came from. The holiday out-of-office guide covers timing the restart.
Why keep left-company replies apart?
An address that answers "no longer with the company" still exists, so a verifier may call it valid, but nobody reads it. Put it on the suppression list with unsubscribes and delivery failures, and email the replacement instead. More in the email is valid but the person left.
What each category means and what to do
| Category | Example | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Interested | "Send over pricing" | Reply by hand today |
| Referral | "Speak to Eva, she handles vendors" | Check the new address, then email it naming the referrer |
| Not now | "Check back in Q2" | Set a reminder for that date |
| Out of office | "Back on 17 November" | Pause, resume the day after |
| Left the company | "No longer with Example Org" | Suppress; email the replacement |
| Unsubscribe, bounce | "Remove me", "address not found" | Suppress everywhere you send from |
Who uses this tool, and for what?
- Cold email agencies
- Sort a week of replies across client campaigns before the client call, with the out-of-office leads queued for their return dates.
- SDRs
- Pull the referrals out of a busy inbox and turn them into a warm follow-up sequence.
- Founders
- Clear the inbox after a first campaign and keep a clean suppression file for the next one.
What can’t this tool tell you?
- Rule-based: sarcasm, mixed messages ("not now, but send pricing") and replies in other languages can land in the wrong category or in Needs a read.
- A return date is only found when the text gives one in a common format; "back after the holidays" has none.
- Referrals named without an address ("talk to Eva") can't be turned into a contact.
- It reads the reply text you export; it can't fetch replies from your sequencer.
Common questions
- Does a model read the replies?
- No. It matches phrase rules in your browser, so it is predictable and nothing is sent anywhere. Replies that match no rule are marked Needs a read for you to sort.
- Which export format does it need?
- Any CSV with the sender's email and the reply text. Columns named from_email, email, lead email, reply, body or message are found by name; subject and date are optional.
- How does it find the return date?
- It looks after words like back, returning or until for a date: month names (November 17, 17 Nov), numbers (11/17, with a day-first option) or a weekday, which counts as the next one after the reply date.
- What counts as a new contact?
- Any address written in the reply's own text other than the sender and automated mailboxes, for example the colleague in "please contact [email protected]".
- Is my file uploaded?
- No. It is read in your browser and nothing is sent unless you choose to check the new contacts afterwards.
Sources
A tidy list can still be full of dead addresses.
Extracting, deduplicating and syntax checks all work on the text of an address. None of them can tell whether the mailbox exists. Only the server that hosts it can answer that, through an SMTP check, and that is what the paid product does.
- Upload the cleaned file as it is: CSVs up to 100,000 rows
- A real SMTP mailbox check on every row, with catch-all detection
- Small list? Starter at $9/mo covers 2,500 emails a month, cancel anytime
Plans from $9 a month, cancel anytime, no contract. Sign in with Google and your first 100 email checks are free, no card. The free tools stay free either way.