The Complete Guide to Microsoft Teams Status Icons
Microsoft Teams has more presence indicators than most chat tools. Where Slack uses essentially two states (Active and Away), Teams uses up to eight, mixing automatic and manual states, with subtle differences that affect how your colleagues read your availability. Understanding the difference between "Away" and "Appear Away" — or "Busy" and "Do Not Disturb" — can change how you're perceived without you doing anything different.
This guide explains every Teams presence indicator, what triggers it, what others see, and which you can actually control. Start with the at-a-glance reference table, then read the detail on any icon below.
Microsoft Teams Status Icons at a Glance
| Icon | Status | What it means / when it shows |
|---|---|---|
| 🟢 Green circle, white check | Available | Active on a Teams client — keyboard/mouse input, a Teams call, or the window focused. The "ping me anytime" signal. |
| 🟡 Yellow clock | Away | Set automatically after ~5 minutes of inactivity, or instantly when you lock your PC or it sleeps. The state most people are trying to avoid. |
| 🟡 Yellow clock | Be Right Back | Manual. A short, voluntary absence — coffee, bathroom. Visually identical to Away. |
| 🟡 Yellow clock | Appear Away | Manual. You deliberately look unavailable while still seeing messages. Identical yellow clock to Away. |
| 🔴 Red circle, white dash | Busy | You can get notifications but signal you're occupied. Often set manually. |
| 🔴 Red circle, white dash | In a call | Automatic while you're on a Teams call — same red dash as Busy. |
| 🔴 Red circle, white dash | In a meeting | Automatic when a calendar meeting is in progress (calendar/Outlook-driven). |
| 🔴 Red circle, white dash | Presenting | Automatic while you share your screen — suppresses notifications like DND. |
| ⛔ Red circle, white minus / red ring with white centre | Do Not Disturb | Manual only. Mutes notifications. At small sizes some clients draw it as a white circle with a red outline. |
| ⚪ Grey circle, white X | Offline / Appear Offline | Signed out, or no Teams client active for ~30+ minutes after Away. "Appear Offline" is the manual version. |
| ⚪ Grey circle, no X (hollow) | Status unknown | Teams can't determine presence — common for external, guest, or federated users, or a brief sync delay. Not the same as Offline. |
| 🟢 White circle, green check | Available, Out of Office | Green check on a white field in new Outlook/Teams — Available, but with an Out-of-Office auto-reply also set. |
| 🟣 Purple arrow / purple person | Out of Office (OOF) | Outlook automatic reply or a calendar event marked "Show as: Out of Office". Synced from Microsoft 365 — persists overnight and across reboots. |
The full breakdown of each icon follows.
Available (green check)
A green circle with a white checkmark next to someone's name means Available in Microsoft Teams.
The default "I'm here and reachable" state. Set automatically when Teams detects you're active — using your keyboard or mouse, in a Teams call, or with the Teams window focused. Also settable manually, but Teams will override your manual setting if it detects you've been inactive for ~5 minutes.
What others see: green circle with a white checkmark next to your name. The strongest "ping me anytime" signal you can send.
Busy / In a call / In a meeting / Presenting (red dash)
A red circle with a white dash next to someone's name means Busy, In a call, In a meeting, or Presenting in Microsoft Teams — all four states share the same icon.
All four share the same icon — a red circle with a white dash. Busy can be set manually when you want to discourage interruptions but still get notifications. In a call appears automatically while you're on a Teams call. In a meeting is calendar-driven — Teams reads your Outlook/Microsoft 365 calendar and flips you to Busy ("In a meeting") for the duration of a scheduled event. Presenting shows automatically while you share your screen, and it behaves like Do Not Disturb by suppressing notifications so they don't pop up mid-presentation.
What others see: a red circle with a white dash next to your name. The convention is "you'll get a reply eventually, but maybe not right now."
Do Not Disturb (red circle, white minus)
A red circle with a horizontal white bar — or a white circle with a red outline at small sizes — means Do Not Disturb in Microsoft Teams.
Stronger than Busy. Suppresses most notifications and chat pings. Only set manually — Teams will never automatically put you in DND. Often used during focused work. (Teams also moves you to a DND-like state automatically while you're presenting.)
What others see: a red circle with a horizontal white bar. At small sizes or in some themes this can render as a white circle with a red outline rather than a solid red dot — it's the same Do Not Disturb status, just drawn as a ring. People generally treat it as "do not interrupt unless urgent."
Be Right Back (yellow clock)
A yellow clock icon next to someone's name means Be Right Back in Microsoft Teams — a short, manually-set absence.
A manual state. Indicates a short, voluntary absence — coffee, bathroom, quick errand. Distinct from Away because it implies intentionality: you know you're stepping out and you'll be back shortly.
What others see: yellow clock icon. Practically identical to Away in appearance, but the intent signal differs.
Away (yellow clock)
A yellow clock icon next to someone's name means Away in Microsoft Teams — set automatically after about 5 minutes of inactivity or the moment a PC locks.
Set automatically in two situations: when Teams detects no mouse or keyboard activity for ~5 minutes, or instantly the moment you lock your PC (or it goes to sleep). This is the state most people are trying to avoid when they look for tools to keep Teams active. For the full breakdown of when the yellow clock appears, see Teams Away status.
What others see: yellow clock icon. The visual is identical to "Be Right Back" and "Appear Away" — others can't distinguish between voluntary and automatic.
Appear Away (yellow clock)
The same yellow clock icon can also mean Appear Away in Microsoft Teams — a manual status set deliberately to look unavailable while still monitoring messages.
A manual state where you deliberately want to look unavailable while still being able to see messages. Useful for focused work where you don't want to be pinged but still want to monitor what's coming in.
What others see: the same yellow clock as Away. There's no visual indicator that distinguishes Appear Away from automatic Away — that's intentional, since the point of Appear Away is to look like normal Away.
Offline / Appear Offline (grey X)
A grey circle with a white X next to someone's name means Offline in Microsoft Teams (or Appear Offline when set manually).
Set automatically when you've signed out of Teams or you haven't been active on any Teams client for an extended period (typically 30+ minutes after Away). On mobile, you'll appear Offline almost immediately after closing the app. Appear Offline is the manual version — you set it deliberately while still able to read and reply.
What others see: a grey circle with a white X next to your name. This is the "grey X" people often ask about — full detail, including whether it means you've been blocked, is in what the grey X means on Teams. It's the strongest "I'm not reachable right now" signal short of being entirely absent from the directory.
Status unknown (grey circle, no X)
A hollow grey circle with no X inside means Status unknown in Microsoft Teams — presence Teams can't determine, distinct from Offline.
Occasionally you'll see a plain grey circle with no X inside it — distinct from the grey X of Offline. This is the Unknown presence state: Teams can't determine the person's status. It most often appears for external, guest, or federated users from another organisation whose presence doesn't sync to your tenant, or briefly while presence information is still loading. It doesn't mean the person is Away or Offline — only that their real status isn't visible to you.
What others see: a hollow grey circle with no symbol inside. If your own dot looks like this to colleagues, see Teams status not updating.
Out of Office — the purple arrow (OOF)
A purple arrow (or purple person icon) next to someone's name means Out of Office in Microsoft Teams, synced from an Outlook auto-reply or calendar event.
Set automatically when you have an Outlook out-of-office auto-reply enabled, or a calendar event marked "Show as: Out of Office". Teams pulls this from your Microsoft 365 calendar and returns to your normal status when the out-of-office period ends. Because it lives in the calendar layer, it's the only status that persists through reboots and overnight.
What others see: a purple arrow (or purple person icon) next to your name, paired with the out-of-office message Outlook auto-replies with. It's the single most-confused Teams icon — full detail on triggers and how to remove it is in what the purple arrow means on Teams.
Chat, Message & Call Icons in Teams
Beyond the coloured presence dots, Teams uses a second family of icons inside chats, the message compose box, and call windows. These aren't about availability — they're controls and message states — but they're the other half of what people mean when they search "Teams icons" or "Teams symbols". Here's what each one is.
Message & compose-box icons
| Icon | What it means |
|---|---|
| A with a pencil | Open formatting — bold, lists, headings, and the expanded compose box. |
| Paperclip | Attach a file from your device, OneDrive, or the team's files. |
| Smiley face | Open the emoji, GIF, and sticker picker. |
| Red exclamation mark (!) | Marks a message as Important — flags it as urgent to the recipient. |
| Red triangle with "!" | Message failed to send. Teams couldn't deliver it — usually a dropped connection. Click to retry. |
| Checkmark / eye | Message sent and, where read receipts are on, seen by the recipient. |
Call & meeting control icons
| Icon | What it means |
|---|---|
| Camera | Turn your video on or off / start a video call. |
| Microphone | Mute or unmute your audio. A line through it means you're muted. |
| Phone (handset) | Place an audio call; the red handset leaves or hangs up. |
| Screen with an arrow | Share your screen or a window. While sharing, your presence shows Presenting. |
| Raised hand | Raise your hand in a meeting to ask to speak without interrupting. |
One thing worth remembering: a red triangle or red exclamation in a chat is a message state, not a presence one — it says nothing about whether the person is Available or Away.
Custom Status Message vs Presence Indicator
Teams has two distinct concepts that are easy to confuse: the presence indicator (the coloured dot) and the status message (a free-text label).
The presence indicator is one of the icons above. The status message is a string you can set, like "Working from home" or "In meeting until 3pm" or just a short note. Status messages appear when someone hovers your name or before they send you a message. The two are independent — you can be Available with a status message of "Heads down, please email," or you can be Do Not Disturb with no status message at all.
Most people use them poorly. Status message is the right tool when you want to communicate something specific. The presence indicator is what colleagues actually glance at in their chat list.
How Teams Determines Available vs Away
Teams' presence service is shared across multiple Microsoft surfaces — Outlook, SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Groups. Your activity signals come from whichever client you're using: the Teams desktop app, the Teams web client at teams.microsoft.com, or any of the integrated Office apps.
On the desktop app, Teams tracks system-wide mouse and keyboard input. As long as your computer is in use, your status stays Available. The moment system input stops for the threshold duration (~5 minutes), the client signals "inactive" to Microsoft's presence service and you switch to Away.
On the web client, Teams tracks browser-window focus and within-tab activity. The same threshold applies, but the tab needs to be in focus periodically — a Teams tab open in the background but never clicked will still flip you to Away.
If you have multiple Teams clients open (desktop on your laptop, web on another machine, mobile on your phone), Teams uses the most-active one. As long as any client is signalling activity, you're Available across all of them.
Can You Manually Control Your Presence Indicator?
You can manually set Busy, Do Not Disturb, Be Right Back, Appear Away, or Available. You cannot, however, hold yourself in Available indefinitely. Teams treats manual Available as a preference — if your activity signals indicate you're not actually using a Teams client, the service will eventually revert you to Away regardless of what you set.
This is the fundamental limitation of trying to "stay green on Teams" through manual controls alone. The manual selection is honored briefly, but Microsoft's presence service ultimately trusts client-side activity signals over user preference. To stay Available indefinitely, you need an active client signalling activity — which is exactly what Stay Green On Teams provides from the cloud.
What Others See — Chat, Mentions, and Channel Lists
Your presence indicator appears in three primary places others see you:
- In direct chats: a small coloured dot on your avatar in the chat header and chat list.
- In channels: when you're @-mentioned or post a message, your avatar carries your current presence indicator.
- In the "Members" panel of a team or channel: a roster view showing everyone's current state.
Critically, Teams also shows a "Last active" timestamp in some contexts — particularly in 1:1 chats where Teams will display "Last seen 10 minutes ago" or similar. This is calculated separately from the presence indicator and can betray a long absence even if your dot is green.
How Stay Green On Teams Keeps Your Dot Green
Stay Green On Teams takes a different approach from manual controls. Instead of relying on your local Teams client to signal activity, our service connects to Microsoft's presence infrastructure from the cloud — using your own session credentials — and maintains your "Available" presence indefinitely from a server.
From Microsoft's perspective, your account simply has another active Teams client connected at all times. From your perspective, you can close your laptop, leave Teams entirely, and your dot stays green for the hours you've scheduled. There's no mouse jiggler running, no browser tab to keep open, no manual override that quietly expires.
How to Set or Change Your Teams Status
You can manually override your presence indicator at any time:
- Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams (desktop, web, or mobile).
- Click your current status shown under your name (for example "Available") to open the presence menu.
- Choose Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb, Be Right Back, Appear Away, or Appear Offline. The change applies immediately for everyone who views your presence.
- Optionally choose "Reset status" to return to automatic presence, or "Duration" to have the status expire after a set time.
One catch: Teams still reverts a manual Available back to Away after sustained inactivity. Only a cloud presence service keeps you green indefinitely.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many status icons does Microsoft Teams have?
Microsoft Teams has eight presence indicators: Available, Busy, Do Not Disturb, Be Right Back, Away, Appear Away, Offline, and Out of Office. Each has a distinct colour and meaning, and they're controlled by a mix of automatic activity detection, calendar integration, and manual selection.
What's the difference between Away and Appear Away?
Away is automatic — Teams sets it when you've been inactive for ~5 minutes. Appear Away is manual — you deliberately set it while still being able to see and respond to messages. The visual indicator is identical, so others can't tell them apart.
Does Teams show me as Away even when I'm in a meeting elsewhere?
Yes. Teams only detects activity in its own client — mouse and keyboard input, or the Teams window having focus. If you're in a Zoom call or Google Meet, Teams doesn't see that activity and will flip you to Away after ~5 minutes.
Can I disable the automatic Away status in Microsoft Teams?
No — Microsoft does not expose a setting to disable or extend the inactivity timeout. You can manually set yourself to Available, but Teams will eventually override the manual selection if it detects no activity. To keep Teams Available indefinitely without leaving your computer on, you need an external solution like Stay Green On Teams that maintains presence from the cloud.
What does the purple arrow on Teams mean?
The purple arrow (and the purple person icon) means Out of Office, set automatically when you have an Outlook auto-reply scheduled or a calendar event marked 'Show as: Out of Office'. Teams pulls this from your Microsoft 365 calendar and returns to your normal status when the out-of-office period ends.
What does the grey X on Teams mean?
The grey circle with a white X means Offline. It shows when you've signed out of Teams or no Teams client has been active for an extended period (typically 30+ minutes after Away). It's the strongest 'not reachable' signal short of leaving the directory.
What does a black X mean on Teams?
A black X is the same Offline icon as the grey X — it just renders darker depending on your Teams theme (dark mode) or display. There's no separate 'black X' status; it means the same thing as the standard grey X: Offline.
What does a blue dot mean on Teams?
Microsoft Teams presence doesn't use a blue dot — the official states are green, yellow, red, grey, and purple. A blue dot is almost always the unread-activity indicator next to a chat, channel, or the Activity bell, marking something you haven't opened yet. It disappears once you view that item and has nothing to do with someone's Available/Away status.
What does the eye icon mean in Teams chat?
The eye (or checkmark/eye) icon under a sent message means it's been read by the recipient, if read receipts are turned on for that chat. It's a message read-receipt icon, not a presence indicator — it doesn't tell you whether the person is currently Available or Away.
What does the white circle with a red outline mean on Teams?
A white (or hollow) circle with a red outline is the Do Not Disturb indicator rendering at small sizes or in certain themes — some clients draw DND as a red ring with a white centre and a dash rather than a solid red dot. It means the person has muted notifications and doesn't want to be interrupted.
What does a grey circle with no X mean on Teams?
A plain grey circle with no X is the Unknown presence state — Teams can't determine the person's status. It usually appears for external, guest, or federated users from another organisation whose presence doesn't sync to your tenant, or briefly while presence is still loading. It's different from the grey X (Offline) and doesn't mean the person is away.
What does the red triangle with an exclamation mark mean on Teams?
A red triangle with an exclamation mark on a message means it failed to send — Teams couldn't deliver it, usually because of a dropped connection. Click the message and choose retry. It's a message-delivery icon, not a presence status, so it says nothing about whether you're Available or Away.
What does the yellow clock mean in Teams and Outlook?
The yellow clock means Away. Teams sets it automatically after about 5 minutes of inactivity, or instantly when you lock your PC. The same yellow clock is used for the manual 'Be Right Back' and 'Appear Away' states, so others can't tell automatic Away from a deliberate one.
Does Teams show 'Last active' to other people?
In 1:1 chats and some other contexts, Teams shows a 'Last seen' timestamp. This is calculated independently of your presence indicator and can show a long absence even if your dot is still green — which is one reason cloud-based presence maintenance is more honest than manually setting Available.