Out of Office Message Examples (Copy-and-Paste Templates)

Nobody writes their out of office message at a calm moment. It gets written ten minutes before a flight, the night before a procedure, or on the last afternoon of a quarter with six other things still waiting to be signed. So it comes out vague, the return date goes missing, and a week later you’re back in front of an inbox full of messages someone else could have handled.

Below is a library of out of office message examples you can copy, paste, and edit in about a minute. They’re grouped by scenario: vacation, sick day, parental leave, public holidays, business travel, medical or extended leave, and leaving a company. First, a short section on what a good out of office message actually has to contain, because the bad ones tend to fail on the same three details.

I’m Nir Sabato, co-founder of Catch, the AI executive assistant that handles admin work for executives: email triage and drafting, scheduling, reminders, reservations, and outbound calls placed on your behalf. A weak auto-reply is one of the reasons people come back from a week away to a backlog nobody could route while they were gone, so the details below are worth getting right.

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What a good out of office message includes

Four questions, answered in under 60 words: are you gone, until when, who should the sender talk to instead, and what happens to this email.

• The fact that you’re away. First line. Don’t bury it under a thank-you.
• Your return date. A specific date, not “next week.” Use the day you’re actually back at your desk, not the last day of the trip.
• An alternate contact. A person or a shared inbox for urgent things. Leave it out and all you’ve told the sender is that they’re stuck.
• What happens to their email. Will you reply when you return, or will the message never get read? Either answer is fine. Saying nothing isn’t.

Two things are optional: the reason you’re away, and an apology. Nobody needs to know you’re at a wedding, and nobody expects you to be sorry for taking time off.

Two things are worth leaving out on purpose: exact travel details and your internal org chart. The auto-reply goes to everyone who emails you, including plenty of senders you’d rather not tell that you’re in another country for eleven days. Keep the external version plain. Colleagues who need more (where you are, how to reach you if something is genuinely on fire) can get a separate message in Outlook, which lets you write one version for people inside your organization and another for everyone else. Gmail sends a single message to all senders, so write the external one there and pass the extra detail to your team directly.

Subject lines that work

The subject line should be functional. These three cover almost every case:

• Out of office - back [date]
• Out of office until [date]
• [Your name] is out of office (returning [date])

Skip anything clever. It’s a routing instruction, not a headline.

Vacation out of office message examples

The most common case, and the one where being brief pays off most.

Standard vacation auto-reply

Subject: Out of office - back [date]

Thanks for your email. I’m out of the office until [date] with limited access to email.

For anything urgent, please contact [name] at [email]. Otherwise I’ll reply when I’m back.

[Your name]

Vacation, fully offline

Subject: Out of office until [date]

I’m away until [date] and won’t be checking email while I’m out.

If you need something before then, [name] ([email]) can help. Anything else will be waiting for me when I return, and I’ll get to it in order.

[Your name]

Vacation, checking email occasionally

Subject: Out of office - back [date]

I’m out of the office until [date]. I’ll be checking email once a day, so a reply may take 48 hours.

If it can’t wait that long, please contact [name] at [email].

[Your name]

Long vacation (two weeks or more)

Subject: Out of office until [date]

I’m on leave until [date] and my inbox is unmonitored while I’m out.

For [type of request], contact [name] at [email]. For [other type of request], contact [name] at [email].

Please resend anything time-sensitive after [date] - I’m not going to work through the backlog message by message.

[Your name]

That last line earns its place. It tells senders the truth about what happens to a two-week backlog, and it gives them a way to keep their request from being the one that slips.

Vacation, internal version

Subject: Out of office - back [date]

I’m out until [date]. [Name] is covering [area] and [name] is covering [area].

I’m reachable at [phone] only if something is genuinely on fire - outages, contract deadlines, anything client-facing that can’t wait. Everything else can hold.

[Your name]

Sick day out of office message examples

Short is the whole point here. You’re not well, and you shouldn’t be drafting prose.

Same-day sick note

Subject: Out sick today

I’m out sick today and won’t be online. I’ll pick this up tomorrow.

For anything urgent, please contact [name] at [email].

[Your name]

Out sick, return date unknown

Subject: Out of office

I’m out sick and not checking email. I expect to be back by [date], though that may shift.

[Name] ([email]) is covering for me and can help with anything that can’t wait.

[Your name]

Sick, with meetings to cancel

Subject: Out sick - back [date]

I’m out sick until [date]. Any meetings we had scheduled this week have been cancelled and I’ll reach out to rebook when I’m back.

For urgent items, please contact [name] at [email].

[Your name]

Parental leave out of office message examples

Parental leave runs long enough that the auto-reply has to do more than hold the door. Name a real owner for your work, and say plainly that nobody is reading the inbox.

Parental leave, standard

Subject: Out of office - parental leave

I’m on parental leave until [date] and won’t be reading email while I’m out.

[Name] ([email]) is covering my work and can help with anything you’d normally bring to me.

I’ll be back on [date] and will pick things up then.

[Your name]

Parental leave, with split coverage

Subject: Out of office until [date]

I’m on parental leave through [date]. My inbox is unmonitored during that time.

• [Area, e.g. client accounts]: [name], [email]
• [Area, e.g. vendor and billing]: [name], [email]
• Anything else: [name], [email]

Please email them directly rather than forwarding - messages sent here won’t be seen.

[Your name]

Parental leave, minimal

Subject: Out of office

I’m out on parental leave and back on [date]. Please contact [name] at [email] in the meantime.

[Your name]

Public holiday and company closure examples

Write these once, schedule them in advance, reuse them every year.

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Single public holiday

Subject: Out of office - [holiday name]

Our offices are closed on [date] for [holiday]. I’ll reply when we reopen on [date].

[Your name]

Holiday shutdown week

Subject: Out of office - office closed through [date]

[Company] is closed from [date] through [date]. Everyone is out and email is unmonitored during that period.

We reopen on [date] and will respond to messages in the order they arrived. For emergencies affecting live service, please use [support email or phone].

[Your name]

Holiday, customer-facing version

Subject: Out of office - back [date]

Thanks for reaching out. We’re closed for [holiday] and back on [date].

If you need help with an existing order or account, our support team is monitoring [support email] throughout the break and will get back to you within one business day.

[Your name]

Business travel and conference out of office examples

On business travel you’re usually reachable, just slow. Say that instead of pretending you’ve disappeared.

Traveling for work

Subject: Traveling - slower than usual until [date]

I’m traveling for work until [date] and replies will be slower than usual. I’m still reachable for anything urgent - email me with URGENT in the subject line and I’ll see it.

For scheduling, please contact [name] at [email].

[Your name]

At a conference

Subject: At [conference name] until [date]

I’m at [conference] through [date] and mostly away from my desk. I’ll reply to email each evening.

If you’re also at [conference] and want to meet, send me a note and I’ll find a slot.

For anything that can’t wait, contact [name] at [email].

[Your name]

Traveling across time zones

Subject: Out of office - traveling until [date]

I’m traveling until [date] and currently [X] hours ahead of [your usual time zone], so replies may arrive at odd hours or take a day.

For urgent matters, [name] ([email]) is in [time zone] and can help immediately.

[Your name]

Medical leave and extended absence examples

Keep these matter-of-fact. You don’t owe anyone a diagnosis, and one plain sentence reads as more professional than a detailed explanation.

Medical leave

Subject: Out of office - medical leave

I’m on medical leave until [date] and not checking email.

[Name] ([email]) is handling my responsibilities and can help with anything you’d normally send my way.

[Your name]

Extended leave, no firm return date

Subject: Out of office - extended leave

I’m on extended leave and my inbox is unmonitored. I don’t have a confirmed return date yet.

Please contact [name] at [email] - they’re covering my work in full and can either help directly or point you to the right person.

[Your name]

Sabbatical

Subject: Out of office - on sabbatical until [date]

I’m on sabbatical until [date]. Email sent to this address during that time won’t be read or forwarded.

For [team or area] matters, contact [name] at [email]. For anything personal, I’ll be back on [date].

[Your name]

Left the company: out of office message examples

This one works differently from the rest. IT or a manager usually sets it after the fact, and it lands in front of customers who have no idea anything changed, so it can’t sound abrupt.

Left the company, standard

Subject: No longer at [company]

Thank you for your email. I no longer work at [company] as of [date].

For anything related to [area], please contact [name] at [email]. They’ll make sure your request is handled.

[Your name]

Left the company, with forwarding

Subject: [Name] has left [company]

[Name] is no longer with [company]. This inbox is monitored by the [team] team.

Please send new requests to [team email] and someone will reply within one business day.

Thanks, The [company] team

Changed roles internally

Subject: New role - please redirect [area] requests

I’ve moved to [new role] at [company] as of [date], and I no longer handle [previous area].

For [previous area], please contact [name] at [email]. For [new area], you can keep emailing me here.

[Your name]

How to set an out of office message in Gmail and Outlook

Both take under a minute.

Gmail: Settings → See all settings → General → scroll to Vacation responder. Set the first and last day, add your subject and message, and decide whether it goes only to people in your contacts or only to people inside your organization. Save at the bottom of the page. Note that Gmail sends one message to everyone who gets a reply. Those checkboxes limit who receives it; they don’t give you a second version.

Outlook: In classic Outlook for Windows, File → Automatic Replies (Out of Office). In new Outlook and Outlook on the web, Settings → Accounts → Automatic replies. Set the date range, then fill in the two messages separately: “Inside My Organization” and “Outside My Organization.” Outlook sends the external version only once per sender, which is why that message has to stand on its own.

Two settings people miss. In Outlook, the external reply stays off until you tick the box. In Gmail, leave the end date blank and the responder keeps sending until you remember to turn it off. Set the end date.

What happens to your inbox while the auto-reply runs

An out of office message manages expectations. It doesn’t manage your inbox. Everything that arrives while you’re away is still sitting there when you get back, in the order it landed, urgent items buried among the newsletters.

That gap is the part worth solving. While you’re out, Catch keeps working on the inbox behind the auto-reply: reading messages in context, weighing what actually matters to you, clearing what doesn’t need you, flagging and reminding you of what does, and booking meeting requests instead of letting them pile up for two weeks. It handles what it can on its own, checking with you first on anything it hasn’t learned yet, and reaches you over Slack, WhatsApp, or a message when something genuinely needs your decision. Catch is $99 a month, flat, with voice calls included and no per-call fees.

An auto-reply only tells people you’re away. Catch is what keeps the work moving until you’re back at your desk.

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Frequently asked questions