Outlook Out-of-Office Message

You can set up Microsoft Outlook to send an automatic response to some or all of the people who send you e-mail messages when you are out of office.

 

Steps to Setup Out of Office in Outlook

  1. Select File > Automatic Replies.

    Automatic replies option

  2. In the Automatic Replies box, select Send automatic replies.

    You can also 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',  you can use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message. Please see the article listed here for the settings - Set up Out Of Office using rules in Outlook.

  3. On the 'Inside My Organization' tab, type the response that you want to send to colleagues while you are away or out of the office.

    Inside my organization tab

    Note: If you choose automatic replies to 'anyone outside my organization', it will send an automatic reply to every email and potentially, junk emails. If you want to send automatic replies to those outside your organization, you can choose to send it only to your contacts list and not everyone.

  4. Select OK to save your settings.

 

How to Turn Off Automatic Out-of-Office Replies

When Outlook is configured to send automatic replies, you'll see a message on the top bar as shown in a screenshot below. Select Turn Off to disable automatic out-of-office replies.

Turn off automatic replies