You can send automatic (Out of Office) replies from Outlook when you want to let people know that you won’t be responding to their email messages right away.
Note: Outlook for Mac does not support automatic replies for Gmail, Yahoo!, or other POP or IMAP accounts.
Automatic replies for Exchange, Outlook.com, Hotmail, or Office 365 account
You can set up automatic replies when you're out of the office and specify an end date so that the replies will stop automatically when you return, or you can manually turn off automatic replies.
Set up automatic replies when you're out of the office
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In the navigation pane, select Mail.
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Select the Tools menu, then select Automatic Replies.
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Select Send automatic replies for account "(your account)".
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Under Reply once to each sender within my organization, enter your automatic reply.
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To set the start and end dates, select the Send replies during this time period checkbox, and enter the start and end dates and times.
Note: When you check this box and set start and end dates and times, your out of office replies will turn off automatically when the end date and time occurs.
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To set options for replying to people outside your organization (if it is enabled by your Exchange administrator), select Send replies outside my organization, then select Send only to my Contacts or Send to all external senders, and under Reply once to senders outside my organization, enter your automatic reply.
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Select OK.
Turn off automatic replies
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In the navigation pane, select Mail.
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Select the Tools menu, then select Automatic Replies.
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Clear the checkbox next to Send automatic replies for account "(your account)."
Check what type of account you have
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In the Outlook menu bar choose Tools > Accounts.
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In the Accounts box, in the side pane, select the account.
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Above the Account Description, the account type is listed.
Note: The Default Account information will display first.
Automatic replies for Exchange, Hotmail, or Outlook.com accounts
You can set up automatic replies for when you're out of the office and specify an end date so that the replies will stop automatically when you return, or you can manually turn off automatic replies.
Set up automatic replies when you're out of the office
-
In the navigation pane, select Mail.
-
Select the Tools menu, then select Automatic Replies.
-
Select Send automatic replies for account "(your account)".
-
Under Reply once to each sender with, enter your automatic reply.
-
To set the start and end dates, check Send replies only during this time period and enter the start and end dates and times.
Note: When you set start and end dates and times, your out of office replies turn off automatically when the end date and time occurs.
-
To set options for replying to people outside your organization (if it is enabled by your Exchange administrator), check Also send replies to senders outside my organization, select Send to external senders, and under Reply once to each external sender, enter your automatic reply.
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Select Ok.
Turn off automatic replies
-
In the navigation pane, select Mail.
-
Select the Tools menu, then select Automatic Replies.
-
Clear the checkbox next to Send automatic replies for account "(your account)."
Check what type of account you have
-
In the Outlook menu bar, select Tools > Accounts.
-
In the Accounts box in the side pane, select the account.
-
Above the Account Description, the account type is listed.
