Teams Out of Office vs Away.

Out of Office and Away both signal that you're not actively working — but they're triggered differently, look different, behave differently, and clear differently. Mixing them up leads to awkward situations: auto-replies going out when you didn't intend them, or colleagues thinking you've left for a week when you've just stepped away for coffee. Here's the full breakdown.

Out of Office: set by your calendar

Out of Office in Teams isn't something Teams sets on its own — it mirrors your Outlook calendar. When you set up an Out of Office reply in Outlook (via Settings → Automatic Replies) with a date range, Teams reads that calendar event and automatically shows your status as Out of Office during that period.

Visually, Out of Office shows a purple presence indicator with a small suitcase icon next to your name. It's distinct from every other Teams status. When a colleague hovers over your name, they'll typically see your Out of Office message if you've written one in Outlook.

Key behaviours of Out of Office:

• Automatic replies: Outlook sends auto-replies to people who email you. Teams messages may also show the OOO message depending on your configuration.
• Persists until the calendar event ends: It doesn't clear when you open Teams or become active — it runs for the duration of the Outlook event, regardless of your actual device activity.
• Can be overridden: You can manually set yourself to Available (or any other status) in Teams even while an OOO event is active. This is useful for checking in briefly without disabling your auto-replies in Outlook.

Away: set by inactivity

Away is Teams' automatic response to you not touching your device. After approximately 5 minutes of inactivity on the Teams desktop app — no mouse movement, no keyboard input, no active Teams window in focus — Teams changes your status to Away.

Visually, Away shows a yellow dot next to your avatar. It's less dramatic than Out of Office, and most colleagues read it as "stepped away briefly" rather than "gone for a week."

Key behaviours of Away:

• No auto-replies: Away is purely a presence indicator. It doesn't trigger any notifications to people who message you.
• Clears when you return: The moment you interact with your device — move the mouse, type a key, click in Teams — you go back to Available automatically.
• Doesn't persist through calendar events: Away is based purely on device activity. A vacation day on your calendar doesn't affect it.
• Mobile behaves differently: On Teams mobile, Away can trigger within seconds of switching to another app — mobile OSes background apps much more aggressively than desktop.

The key differences at a glance

• Trigger: Out of Office is calendar-driven; Away is inactivity-driven.
• Visual: Out of Office is purple with a suitcase; Away is yellow.
• Auto-replies: Out of Office yes; Away no.
• Duration: Out of Office runs until the calendar event ends; Away clears on next activity.
• Intent signal: Out of Office means "deliberately unavailable for a period"; Away means "not at keyboard right now."

Which one to use — and when

Use Out of Office when you're on leave, holiday, or will be genuinely unavailable for more than a few hours. Set it in Outlook, write an auto-reply, and Teams will pick it up automatically. Don't set it for a quick coffee run — that's what Away is for (and Away handles itself).

You don't control Away directly — Teams sets it based on inactivity. But if you find it triggering too often during work hours (for example, when you're on a call and your keyboard is idle), a cloud presence tool keeps you Available regardless of device activity. It maintains an active Teams connection from a server, so the inactivity timer never fires.

You can also manually override either status. Go to your profile picture in Teams, click your current status, and choose a different one. Manual overrides typically last until you change them again or until Teams automatically updates based on a calendar event or inactivity. A forced manual Available override expires after around 24 hours.