The Hollow Green Check Means "Available, Out of Office"
Microsoft Teams' presence icons come in two families for most statuses: a filled-in version for the plain status, and an outlined ("open") version that Teams uses when an Outlook Automatic Replies message is also active. Available is normally a solid green circle with a white check mark. When you also have Out of Office replies switched on in Outlook, Teams instead shows a white or hollow circle with an open green check — same shape, same colour, but drawn as an outline rather than a fill.
The two things Teams is tracking are independent of each other: whether you're actually active (Available, Away, Busy, Do Not Disturb) and whether an Automatic Replies message is currently on. Being on Teams doesn't turn off your Out of Office reply, and having Out of Office on doesn't stop Teams from noticing you're active. When both are true, you get the outlined check — Teams' way of saying "this person is around right now, but they've told everyone else they're out."
Solid vs Hollow: The Difference That's Easy to Miss
At the small sizes Teams uses in chat lists, org charts and Outlook, a solid green check and a hollow green check look nearly identical unless you're looking for it. That's exactly why this gets searched — colleagues notice someone is marked "Available" and also "Out of Office" at once and assume something's broken.
Nothing is broken. The same pattern applies to the other presence states: Teams can draw an outlined yellow clock (Away, Out of Office), an outlined red circle (Busy, Out of Office), and so on. Available is simply the version people notice most, because it's the one that looks contradictory — Out of Office normally implies "don't expect a reply," and a bright green Available dot implies the opposite.
Why You're Seeing It Even Though You're Working
This shows up constantly for people who set an Out of Office reply for a trip or a day of focus time, then end up checking Teams anyway — from a phone, a personal laptop, or because a meeting still needed them. The moment Teams registers any activity from a signed-in client, your presence updates to Available, but the Outlook Automatic Replies flag doesn't clear itself. The two systems don't talk to each other beyond Teams reading the OOF flag and rendering it as an outline.
It also appears when a scheduled Automatic Replies window has technically started (say, from 9am) but you're still wrapping up work before you actually leave — Outlook is already applying the OOF reply on schedule while you're demonstrably still online.
How to Turn It Off
Turn off Automatic Replies in Outlook — Teams has no separate switch for this, since it only mirrors what Outlook reports. In Outlook on the web or desktop, go to Settings → Automatic Replies (or File → Automatic Replies in classic desktop Outlook) and switch it off, or set an end date that's already passed. Within a few minutes, Teams drops the Out of Office flag and your check mark goes back to solid, assuming you're still active.
If you want the reply gone but don't want to lose the scheduled dates, some Outlook versions let you edit the end time forward or backward rather than deleting the whole rule — useful if you came back early from a trip you'd scheduled OOF for in advance.
The Full Set of "Out of Office" Icon Variants
Every base presence status has an Out of Office-flagged version, drawn as a hollow outline of the same icon. Here's how each looks, alongside the purple arrow badge that Teams and Outlook show separately as a general Out of Office marker.
| Base status | Normal icon | + Out of Office |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Solid green circle, white check | White circle, green check outline |
| Away / Be Right Back | Yellow clock | Outlined yellow clock |
| Busy | Solid red circle | Outlined red circle |
| Do Not Disturb | Red circle, white dash | Outlined red circle, dash |
| Offline | Grey circle, white X | Grey circle, white X (unchanged) |
Alongside any of these, Outlook and some Teams views also show a small purple arrow or clock badge in the corner as the general Out of Office marker — see what the purple arrow means on Teams for that indicator on its own. If you want the complete reference for every status Teams draws, see all Microsoft Teams status icons explained.