How to Set Out of Office in Outlook: Desktop, Web, and Mobile

I’m Nir Sabato, co-founder of Catch. Setting an out of office in Outlook takes about ninety seconds, and it’s easy to get half of it wrong. The reply goes out to colleagues and never reaches a single person outside the company, because that’s a separate checkbox almost nobody ticks. Or it keeps running well past the return date, since no end time was ever set. Or the option isn’t in the menu at all, and everyone assumes Outlook is broken.

So here’s how to set out of office in Outlook properly, in whichever version you happen to be sitting in: new Outlook for Windows and Mac, classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, and the mobile app. Plus the parts that actually decide whether it works. Scheduling a date range. Writing separate internal and external replies. Adding rules that run while you’re gone. And what to do when the Automatic Replies option isn’t there.

What Outlook automatic replies actually do

Outlook’s out of office feature is called Automatic Replies, and it runs on the mail server rather than on your computer. That distinction matters. Once it’s on, it keeps replying whether your laptop is open, shut, or switched off entirely.

Two behaviors to know before you write anything:

• Each sender gets the reply once, not once per email. Someone who emails you five times over a week receives a single auto-reply. Whatever they need has to be in it the first time.
• Internal and external senders can get different messages. Colleagues on your Microsoft 365 tenant see one version, everyone else sees another. It’s the most useful part of the feature. It’s also off by default on the external side.

One requirement before any of this works: Automatic Replies needs an Exchange or Microsoft 365 account. If your Outlook is connected to a personal POP or IMAP mailbox, the feature won’t appear, and there’s a workaround further down.

How to set out of office in new Outlook (Windows and Mac)

New Outlook is what Microsoft now ships as the default on Windows, and it’s steadily replacing the classic client in most workplaces. Same steps on Windows and Mac.

1. On the View tab, click View settings, or click the gear icon in the top-right corner.
2. Go to Accounts → Automatic replies.
3. Switch on the Turn on automatic replies toggle.
4. Tick Send replies only during a time period, then set your start and end date and time.
5. With the time period on, you can also tick Block my calendar for this period, Automatically decline new invitations for events that occur during this period, and Decline and cancel my meetings during this period.
6. Write your message under Send automatic replies inside your organization. This one goes to your colleagues.
7. Tick Send replies outside your organization and write that message separately. Send replies only to contacts narrows it to people in your address book; leave it unticked and every external sender gets a reply, newsletters and spam included.
8. Click Save.

Step 7 is the one that gets skipped. Leave it unticked and your colleagues get a polite note while your customers, vendors, and candidates hear nothing back at all.

How to set out of office in classic Outlook for Windows

Plenty of people are still on classic Outlook, which puts the same feature somewhere completely different.

1. Click File in the top-left corner.
2. On the Info screen, click Automatic Replies (Out of Office).
3. Select Send automatic replies.
4. Tick Only send during this time range and set the Start time and End time.
5. On the Inside My Organization tab, write the message your colleagues will see.
6. Switch to the Outside My Organization tab, tick Auto-reply to people outside my organization, and choose My Contacts only or Anyone outside my organization.
7. Write the external message.
8. Click OK.

Can’t see Automatic Replies (Out of Office) on the File screen? Then the account you’re looking at isn’t an Exchange account. Check the account selector at the top of the Info page first. On a machine with a work mailbox and a personal one, Outlook shows you the settings for whichever account is selected.

How to set out of office in Outlook on the web

Outlook on the web, whether that’s Outlook.com or your company’s Microsoft 365 webmail, uses the same settings layout as new Outlook.

1. Open your mailbox in the browser and click the gear icon at the top right.
2. Select Accounts → Automatic replies.
3. Switch on the Turn on automatic replies toggle.
4. Tick Send replies only during a time period and set the dates.
5. Choose your calendar options for that period if you want meetings blocked or declined.
6. Write the internal message, then tick Send replies outside your organization and write the external one.
7. Click Save.

One difference: a personal Outlook.com mailbox has no organization behind it, so the internal/external split doesn’t apply there the way it does on a work account. You get one message, and the option to send it only to your contacts.

Keep the web version in mind for the day you’re already away and realize you never set it. Any browser, any machine, and it applies to the same mailbox.

How to set out of office in the Outlook mobile app

The mobile app handles this better than most people expect. Full date range, full external reply.

1. Open the Outlook app and tap your profile picture or account icon in the top-left corner.
2. Tap the gear icon for Settings.
3. Under Mail Accounts, tap the account you want.
4. Tap Automatic Replies and turn the toggle on.
5. Tick Reply during a time period and set your start and end. Skip it and the reply runs until you switch it off manually.
6. Choose between Reply only to my organization and Reply to everyone. Pick Reply to everyone if you want external senders to hear back.
7. Turn on Use different messages to write a separate version for people outside your organization, then write both.
8. Tap the checkmark to save.

Because Automatic Replies lives on the server, whatever you set here shows up in your desktop Outlook too. It’s the same setting either way.

Scheduling a date range, and what it does to your calendar

Always set an end time. Without one, an away message quietly becomes the thing still telling people you’re on leave three weeks after you got back.

Use the moment you’re genuinely back at your desk, not the moment your flight lands. Set the end for Sunday night when you return Monday morning, and everything arriving in Sunday’s inbox rush gets no reply and no context.

Setting a time period also unlocks the calendar options, which do more work than the message itself:

• Block my calendar for this period drops a single event across your away dates, so colleagues checking your availability can see it.
• Automatically decline new invitations turns down anything created for those dates after you leave. The invitation still lands in your inbox; Outlook sends the decline back to the organizer for you.
• Decline and cancel my meetings during this period clears what’s already on the books, and Outlook asks you for the message that goes out with it. Careful with this one. It cancels meetings you organized, which sends a cancellation to every attendee, and there’s no undo. Putting them back means recreating each one and re-inviting everybody.

On a Microsoft 365 account, setting automatic replies also updates your Teams status to Out of Office, which saves you being pinged there while your inbox is politely explaining you’re away.

Writing the two versions

Two boxes exist because two audiences need different things.

Internal goes to people who already know you. Name who is covering what. Say how to reach you if something genuinely cannot wait.

I’m out until Monday, March 9. John is covering client accounts and Mark has anything vendor-related. My phone is on for outages and contract deadlines only. Everything else can hold until I’m back.

External goes to customers, vendors, recruiters, and anyone who has ever had your address. Keep it short, give a return date and a route forward, and leave out your location and travel dates.

Thanks for your email. I’m out of the office until Monday, March 9 with limited access to email. For anything urgent, please contact John at [email protected]. Otherwise I’ll reply when I’m back.

On that external message: an auto-reply confirms to every sender that your mailbox is live and that you’re away. Useful information to a customer. Equally useful to someone attempting impersonation. Return date, alternate contact, nothing more.

Rules that run while you’re away

Classic Outlook lets you attach rules to the out of office period, which is where the feature stops being a message and starts being coverage. At the bottom-left of the Automatic Replies dialog, click Rules, then Add Rule.

From there you can act on mail that arrives while you’re out:

• Forward messages from a specific person, or messages with certain words in the subject, to whoever is covering for you.
• Move mail from a mailing list or a system address into a folder so it isn’t sitting on top of everything when you get back.
• Reply using a template for a particular sender who needs more detail than your general message gives.

These rules run only while automatic replies are on, and they process in the order they’re listed. Check two things before you leave. Anyone you’re forwarding mail to should hear about it from you first. And a rule that moves mail out of the inbox should never catch something you’d want to see first thing on your return.

In new Outlook and on the web, this section doesn’t exist inside Automatic Replies. Build the same behavior under Settings → Mail → Rules, and switch those rules off when you’re back.

When Outlook has no Automatic Replies option

This is the failure people spend the longest on. Connect Outlook to a personal Gmail, Yahoo, or other POP or IMAP account and there’s no server holding your away message, so the menu item simply isn’t there.

In classic Outlook for Windows, the workaround is a template plus a rule:

1. Create a new email, write your away message in the body, and leave the To field empty.
2. Go to File → Save As, choose Outlook Template (*.oft) in the file type list, and save it.
3. Close the message without sending.
4. Go to File → Manage Rules & Alerts → New Rule (the same dialog opens from Rules on the Home tab).
5. Choose Apply rule on messages I receive, then click Next.
6. Set a condition such as where my name is in the To box, so you’re not auto-replying to every mailing list you’re on. Click Next.
7. Tick reply using a specific template, click the underlined text, choose User Templates in File System, and select the template you saved.
8. Name the rule, finish, and make sure it’s ticked as active.

Two caveats worth taking seriously. The rule runs in Outlook rather than on a server, so Outlook has to stay open and connected on a machine that’s awake for replies to go out. And you’ll have to switch it off manually when you’re back, because there’s no date range to end it.

If the mailbox is a personal one you can reach through its own web interface, setting the away message there is usually cleaner than the template rule.

Turning it off, and the settings people miss

Set an end time and Outlook stops on its own. If you didn’t, go back to the same screen and turn the toggle off, or click Turn off on the yellow banner Outlook shows across the top of your inbox while replies are running.

The things that most often go wrong:

• The external box was never ticked. Colleagues got the message. Nobody outside did.
• “My Contacts only” was selected without meaning to. Anyone who isn’t in your address book, which includes most new customers, gets nothing.
• The end date landed on the last day of the trip rather than the first day back.
• The wrong account was configured on a machine with more than one mailbox.
• A forwarding rule outlived the absence and is still quietly copying mail to a colleague weeks later.

Send yourself a test from a personal address before you close the laptop. Ten seconds, and it’s the only way to see what an external sender actually receives.

What the auto-reply doesn’t cover

An out of office message manages expectations. It doesn’t manage the inbox. Everything that arrives while it runs is still sitting there when you get back, in arrival order, with the two that mattered buried among four hundred that didn’t. And the alternate contact you named has a full plate of their own.

That’s the gap Catch works on. Catch is an AI executive assistant that keeps handling the admin while you’re out. It reads email in context and decides what to clear, what to answer, and what genuinely needs you. It books the meetings people are asking for instead of parking them. It flags the few things you’d want to know about before you’re back at your desk. When a decision is actually yours to make, it reaches you on Slack, text, or email; when it isn’t, it stays quiet. Early on it checks with you before acting, and as it learns how you work it handles more on its own. It’s $99 a month, flat, with voice calls included and no per-call fees.

Send the automatic reply regardless - senders need to know you’re away. It just doesn’t move any of the work forward while you’re gone.

Frequently Asked Questions