The invention relates to a method for automatically carrying out chromatographic analyses. According to said method, at least one of the following pieces of information is obtained: a) the retention times of at least one constituent; b) the temperature; c) the structural formulae of at least one of the constituents; d) the type of elution agent; and e) the parameters of the separation column. For extensive optimization, the invention is characterized in that the data obtained is optionally completed by available data, at least one first test run is carried out under isocratic conditions, and retention times are detected or calculated on the basis of a model with optimization parameters. The retention times obtained are optimized by varying the parameters, another chromatography run is carried out with the parameters of the optimized retention times, and a comparison is made with the measured retention times. The above-mentioned steps are optionally repeated for further optimization.