How Distro detects replies (human replies, automatic replies, out-of-office)

Every message that reaches the Inbox is sorted by a fixed set of rules. Distro looks at standard email headers, delivery reports and the wording of the reply, then decides whether a person wrote it. Only replies written by a person stop follow-ups. Away messages, auto-responders and soft bounces don't.

The rules are careful but not perfect, so you can always correct a reply with Sort as….

Distro reads only the new part of a reply

Most replies quote your original email underneath. Distro cuts that quoted part off and judges only what the person wrote now. This matters: your email may contain words like "unsubscribe" in its footer, and a quoted footer must not turn a normal reply into an unsubscribe request.

Bounce messages are the exception. They are read in full, because the delivery report is the useful part.

The order Distro checks in

Distro tries each check in turn and stops at the first match:

1. Bounce. A delivery failure report from a mail server.
2. Spam challenge. An "are you human?" challenge from the recipient's spam filter.
3. Out of office. An automatic away message.
4. Unsubscribe request. A short reply with clear opt-out wording, such as "unsubscribe", "remove me", "take me off", "stop emailing" or "do not contact".
5. Automatic reply. Any other auto-responder, recognised by the headers mail systems add to automatic messages.
6. Human reply. Everything else with text in it. Distro then reads the tone: Not interested for wording like "not interested", "no thanks" or "we already use…", Interested for wording like "sounds good", "tell me more" or "let's talk", and Neutral for anything else.

What each category does

A human reply stops the campaign that person replied to. The one exception: if a later step in that sequence is set to If replied or No matter what, the person stays in the sequence for that step. The full rules are in How stop-on-reply works.

If the person is in an Email + LinkedIn campaign, a human reply or an unsubscribe request to one of its emails stops that campaign for them, on both channels. A hard bounce follows the campaign's If an email bounces setting (continue with LinkedIn only, or stop them).

Correct a reply that was sorted wrongly

1. Open the conversation in the Inbox.
2. Open the Sort as… menu at the top.
3. Pick the right category, for example Interested or Out of office.

Distro shows "Reply re-sorted." and adds a line saying you sorted it by hand. From then on, automatic sorting won't change that conversation. Your campaign's Interested numbers follow your correction.

Re-sorting changes the label and the reporting. It doesn't change what already happened to the sequence:

• Re-sorting an out-of-office as a human reply doesn't stop follow-ups that are still due.
• Re-sorting a human reply as automatic doesn't restart a sequence that already stopped.
• Re-sorting a reply as Asked to unsubscribe doesn't add the person to your Unsubscribed list.

Limits worth knowing

• Unsubscribe requests are only detected in short replies with clear wording. A long email that mentions stopping may be sorted as Not interested, which stops that campaign but doesn't block the address everywhere.
• Tone detection (interested versus not interested) is based on wording, not on understanding. Treat it as a first pass and check Needs reply yourself.
• A reply with no text at all, for example only an attachment, is shown as Unsorted and doesn't stop follow-ups.
• Distro only sorts messages it can see. If a reply never reaches the mailbox that sent the email, see A reply is not appearing in Distro.