Send Automatic Out Of Office Replies

Index

When to use?
New Outlook
Classic Outlook
Outlook on the web
Outlook for Mac

When to use?

You can send automatic (Out of Office) replies from Outlook whenever you want to let people who send you email know that you won’t be responding to their messages right away.

New Outlook

On the View tab, select View settings.
Select Accounts > Automatic Replies.
Select the Turn on automatic replies toggle.
Select Send replies only during a time period, and then enter start and end times.
Under Send automatic replies inside your organization, enter the message to send while you're away. (You can use the formatting options for text alignment, color, and emphasis.)

To set up automatic replies to other people, select Send replies outside your organization, then add a separate message for that audience.
When you're done, select Save.

Classic Outlook

Determine email account type

There are two ways to send automatic out-of-office replies. The way you do it depends on the type of email account you have.

Select File on the left end of the ribbon:

The File tab is at the far-left end of the ribbon tabs.

... then select the image below that matches your version of Outlook:

If you see the Automatic Replies button, follow the steps below.

If you don't see the Automatic Replies button,

follow the steps to use rules to send an out of office message.

How to set up an automatic reply

Select File > Automatic Replies.
In the Automatic Replies box, select Send automatic replies.

Optionally, set a date range for your automatic replies. This will turn off automatic replies at the date and time you enter for the end time. Otherwise, you'll need to turn off automatic replies manually.

Note: If you don't see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
On the Inside My Organization tab, type the response that you want to send to teammates or colleagues while you are out of the office.

Note: Sending automatic replies to anyone outside my organization will send your automatic reply to every email, including newsletters, advertisements, and potentially, junk email. If you want to send automatic replies to those outside your organization, we recommend choosing My contacts only.
Select OK to save your settings.

Turn off automatic out-of-office replies

When Outlook is setup to send automatic replies, you'll see a message under the ribbon with this information. Select Turn off to disable automatic out-of-office replies. If you want to modify the dates for your automatic reply or the message sent, use the steps above to modify your settings.

Turn off automatic replies

Outlook on the web

At the top of the page, select Settings > Mail > Automatic replies.
Select the Turn on automatic replies toggle.
Select the Send replies only during a time period check box, and then enter a start and end time.

If you don't set a time period, your automatic reply remains on until you turn it off by selecting the Automatic replies on toggle.
Select the check box for any of the following options that you're interested in:
- Block my calendar for this period
- Automatically decline new invitations for events that occur during this period
- Decline and cancel my meetings during this period
In the box at the bottom of the window, type a message to send to people during the time you're away.

If you like, you can use the formatting options at the top of the box to change the font and color of the text or customize your message in other ways.
If you want senders outside your organization to get automatic replies, select the check box for Send replies outside your organization.
When you're done, select Save at the top of the window.

If you didn't set a time period for automatic replies (step 4 earlier), you'll need to turn them off manually. To turn off automatic replies, sign in to Outlook, choose Settings > Mail > Automatic replies and then select the Automatic replies on toggle.

Outlook for Mac

Set up automatic replies when you're out of the office

At the bottom left corner of the of the navigation pane, select Mail.
On the Tools tab, select Automatic Replies.
Select Send automatic replies for account "(your account)".
Under Reply once to each sender within my organization, enter your automatic reply.
To set the start and end dates, select the Send replies during this time period checkbox, and enter the start and end dates and times.

Note: When you check this box and set start and end dates and times, your out of office replies will turn off automatically when the end date and time occurs.
To set options for replying to people outside your organization (if it is enabled by your Exchange administrator), select Send replies outside my organization, then select Send only to my Contacts or Send to all external senders, and under Reply once to senders outside my organization, enter your automatic reply.
Select OK.