Create an out-of-office response in Microsoft Outlook if you plan to be away from the office for an extended period of time due to vacation, illness, or any other reason. This notifies others that you will be unavailable for a set amount of time due to travel or other commitments.
Using Outlook, you can set up automatic replies like this for whenever you need them to go out. Manually activating and deactivating the function is an alternative. The steps to creating an out-of-office response in Outlook for Windows, Mac, and the web are detailed below.
Microsoft Outlook’s Out-Of-Office Response Feature for Windows
Outlook on Windows makes it easy to set up an out-of-office response ahead of time.
Step:1 Opening Outlook on Windows and going to the File menu.
Step 2 make sure the “Info” tab is selected in the upper left corner. To access this feature, go to the right and click the Auto-Replies button.
Step 3: Select the Send Automatic Replies checkbox and then enter your message in the field provided.
In Step 4: you’ll select a start date and end time for the reply by selecting the Only Send During This Time Frame box.
In the event that no time period is chosen, you will need to manually disable the automated response by returning to this page.
Mac Outlook Allows You to Set an Out-Of-Office Response
Your out-of-office response can be set up and scheduled in the same way whether you’re using the old or new version of Outlook on Mac.
Step : 1 Launch Outlook for Mac and go to Tools > Automatic Replies.
Step 2 is to enable automatic replies by checking the box at the top of the Automatic Replies window and then typing your message into the box below.
Step: 3 choose a time range and click the box labelled “Send replies only during this time period” to set the reply to be sent at that time. Then, decide when you want it to begin and end.
Do not use the schedule function if you do not intend to use the automatic reply.
Step 4: If you want your out-of-office message to be sent to people outside of your company, select the appropriate box. Send to All External Senders or Just My Contacts are your two options.
Then, in the resulting text box, type the prewritten response you want to send.
Outlook on The Web Allows You to Set up An Out-Of-Office Response
The process of creating and scheduling an automatic reply is identical in Outlook for the web.
Step: 1 access Outlook via a web browser and log in.
Step:2 in the drop-down menu that appears, select View All Outlook Settings after clicking the gear icon in the upper-right corner.
Step : 3 Select Automatic Replies on the right and Mail on the far left of the new window that has opened up.
Step: 4 your out-of-office message will be activated once you flip the switch at the top.
Step: 5 select Send Replies During a Time Period to set up an automated response. Then, decide when you want it to begin and end. Choose which additional Outlook Calendar options to apply during the selected time period by selecting the corresponding checkboxes.
If you forget to set up an out-of-office reply, you can disable it here in the settings.
