What "Out of Office" Actually Does in Teams
Out of Office in Teams isn't a status you toggle on the spot like Available or Busy — it's a scheduled block tied to your Outlook calendar. Once it's set, your presence dot shows the Out of Office icon, colleagues see an automatic banner when they message you, and (if you added one) your out-of-office reply goes out automatically. It's a different mechanism from the Away status Teams sets when you've been idle — see Out of Office vs Away for how the two actually differ and when Teams picks one over the other.
How to Set Out of Office in Teams on Desktop
- Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams.
- Select Set status message from the menu that appears.
- At the bottom of the status panel, click Schedule out of office.
- Toggle on Turn on automatic replies.
- Type your out-of-office message (or leave it blank — see below), then set your start and end dates.
- Click Save.
Teams updates your status to Out of Office immediately if today falls inside your date range, or automatically switches you over when the start date arrives. This is also how to change your status to out of office if you're already signed in and just need to flip it on.
How to Set Out of Office in Teams and Outlook
Setting it from Outlook instead
You don't have to open Teams at all — scheduling Automatic Replies in Outlook (File → Automatic Replies, or the Outlook web equivalent under Settings → Mail → Automatic replies) does the same job. Either app writes to the same underlying calendar entry, so it doesn't matter which one you use to set it up.
Does it sync automatically both ways?
Yes, in the current ("new") Teams client. Schedule it in Teams and it appears in Outlook's Automatic Replies settings within a few minutes, and vice versa. If you're still on classic Teams, the sync can lag or need a restart — see the troubleshooting section below if yours isn't showing up.
How to Set Out of Office in Teams Without a Message
The message field in the Schedule out of office panel is optional. Follow the same steps — toggle on Turn on automatic replies, set your dates — and simply leave the message box empty before clicking Save. Teams still shows the Out of Office status and icon to everyone who views your profile; the only thing missing is the automatic chat reply itself. This is the cleanest way to signal you're away without triggering a reply email for every message you get.
Set Out of Office Status on the Teams Mobile App
The mobile flow mirrors desktop closely:
- Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner of the Teams app.
- Tap Set status message.
- Tap Schedule out of office, turn on automatic replies, and set your dates.
- Tap the checkmark to save.
Changes made on mobile sync to desktop, web, and Outlook the same way as changes made anywhere else — it's one shared setting, not a separate mobile-only status.
How to Turn Off Out of Office in Teams
Open the same panel (profile picture, then Set status message, then Schedule out of office), toggle Turn on automatic replies off, and click Save. On mobile, tap your profile picture, Set status message, Schedule out of office, switch the toggle off and tap the checkmark. If your dates were accurate you don't need to do anything at all: Teams reverts you to your normal status as soon as the scheduled end date passes.
Out of Office won't turn off? Check these four places
If you've switched automatic replies off and Teams still shows the purple Out of Office arrow, something else is still telling Teams you're away. Teams reads Out of Office from more than one source, and turning off one doesn't clear the others:
- Outlook Automatic Replies. Check Outlook as well as Teams: File → Automatic Replies in classic desktop Outlook, or Settings → Mail → Automatic replies in Outlook on the web and new Outlook. Make sure it's off, or that the end date has already passed.
- A calendar event marked "Out of office". Any event on your calendar with Show as: Out of office, including a holiday or leave entry someone else sent you and you accepted, puts Teams into Out of Office for its whole duration, even with automatic replies off. Open the event and change Show as to Free or Busy, or delete it.
- A manually set status. Click your profile picture, open the status dropdown and choose Reset status so Teams goes back to setting your presence automatically.
- A stale cache. Quit Teams fully from the system tray, reopen it, and give it a few minutes to sync. If it's still wrong, clear the Teams cache, which forces a fresh status from Microsoft's servers.
Seeing a green check drawn as a hollow outline instead? That's Teams showing Available, but Out of Office: you're active, but one of the sources above is still on.
Out of Office Status Message Examples
Want more options by category — focus time, meetings, WFH, and quick breaks, not just OOO? See 40+ Teams status message examples.
Troubleshooting: Out of Office Not Showing or Not Syncing in Teams
Sign out and back in, or clear the cache
A stale local cache is the most common cause of a status that's set correctly in the backend but not reflected on screen. Signing out and back in forces Teams to re-fetch your current status.
Check you're viewing the right account
If you have multiple Microsoft 365 accounts or a guest account in another tenant, confirm the Out of Office was scheduled on the same account colleagues actually see you on.
Confirm you're not on classic Teams
The classic Teams client syncs Outlook Automatic Replies more slowly, and in some builds doesn't reflect it at all. Switching to new Teams usually resolves it immediately.
Double-check the date range
Out of Office only shows once "today" falls inside your scheduled start and end dates — a status that looks like it isn't working is often just scheduled for a future date.
If the issue is specifically that your presence dot or status is stuck rather than the Out of Office schedule itself, see Teams status not showing in Outlook for the Outlook-side fix.