Setting up Out of Office Replies in Outlook

Overview:

This document is intended for use to turn on and off Out of Office replies in the Outlook desktop client and the Outlook Webmail at https://outlook.office.com/mail. 

Turning On/Off  Out of Office Replies in Outlook:

Set up an automatic reply

1. Select File > Automatic Replies.
2. 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.
3. 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. Enter your automatic reply message
   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.
4. 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.

Turning On/Off  Out of Office Replies in Outlook WebMail:

1. Sign in to Outlook on the web at https://outlook.office.com/mail.
2. At the top right of the page, select Settings > Automatic replies.
3. Choose the Send automatic replies option.
4. Select the Send replies only during this time period check box, and then enter a start and end time to control when automatic replies are sent.
   If you don't set a time period, your automatic reply remains on until you turn it off by selecting Don't send automatic replies.
5. 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
6. If you want senders outside your organization to get automatic replies, select the check box for Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organization.
7. In the box at the bottom of the window, type a message to send to people during the time you're away.
8. If you like, you can highlight your message and use the formatting options at the top of the box to change the font and color of the text, add an emoji, or customize your message in other ways.When you're done, choose OK at the top of the page.
9. 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 on the web, choose Settings > Automatic replies and then select Don’t send automatic replies.