The White Circle With a Red Outline Is Do Not Disturb
A white or hollow circle with a red outline next to someone's name in Microsoft Teams is the Do Not Disturb presence indicator. Microsoft's own icon for Do Not Disturb is a red circle containing a white horizontal bar — the same "no entry" shape used across Windows. When that icon is drawn small, which is how it appears in chat lists, search results, org charts, mention pop-ups and Outlook, the white bar and the white gap around it dominate, and the whole thing reads as a white circle with a red ring around it.
So the two descriptions people search for — "red circle with white inside" and "white circle with a red outline" — are the same status. There is no separate Teams presence state that looks like an empty red ring. If the circle is red in any form and has a horizontal line through it, you are looking at Do Not Disturb.
Do Not Disturb is one of the few Teams statuses that is almost always deliberate. Nothing in Teams flips you into it by accident the way the idle timer flips you to Away. When you see it, someone has chosen it — or their calendar has, which is covered below.
Which Availability Indicator Is Displayed When a User Is in "Do Not Disturb" Mode?
When a user is in Do Not Disturb mode, Microsoft Teams displays a red circle with a white horizontal dash through it. At small icon sizes and in some themes the same indicator renders as a white circle with a red outline and a red dash. The defining feature is the dash: the Do Not Disturb indicator is red, round, and always contains a horizontal bar. That bar is what separates it from the solid red Busy dot, which is filled and has no symbol inside it.
If you're answering this from a Microsoft 365 or MS-700 style study question, the expected answer is simply Do Not Disturb = the red circle with a dash (the "no entry" icon), as distinct from Busy = a plain red circle, Available = a green circle with a check, and Away = a yellow clock.
The Teams Icons People Confuse With It
Almost every "what does this circle mean" question in Teams comes down to four indicators that look similar at 10 pixels wide. Here is each one on its own terms.
White or hollow circle with a red outline (and a red dash) — Do Not Disturb
A white circle with a red outline and a horizontal dash means Do Not Disturb. Notification banners and sounds are muted on that person's device. They are still signed in, still online, and can still read and reply — they've just turned off the interruptions. Their messages queue up silently until they change status.
Solid red circle with no symbol — Busy
A solid red circle with nothing inside it means Busy. This is the one people conflate with Do Not Disturb most often, and the distinction matters because the two states behave completely differently. Busy is usually set for you: it appears automatically when a meeting starts in your Outlook calendar, when you join a call, or when you're presenting. Notifications are not silenced in Busy — you still get banners and sounds. So a colleague showing Busy will very likely see your message land in real time, while a colleague showing Do Not Disturb will not. See the Teams Busy status explained for what triggers it and how to clear it.
Plain white or hollow circle with no colour — Offline or status unknown
A plain hollow circle with no colour and no symbol inside means Teams cannot determine that person's presence — the state usually labelled Offline or Unknown. This is normal for external, guest and federated users whose organisation doesn't share presence with yours, for contacts who have never signed in, and for a few seconds during a sync delay. It carries no information about whether they're at their desk. If your own dot looks like this to colleagues, Teams status unknown walks through the causes.
Grey circle with a white X — Offline
A grey circle with a white X means Offline: Teams sees no connected client at all. The person has signed out, quit the app, or their machine has been asleep long enough that every client dropped off. It's the end of the chain that starts with the green check, passes through the yellow clock after about five minutes of inactivity, and lands on grey after roughly thirty more. Full detail in what the grey X means on Teams.
What does a white dot mean on Teams?
A small white or pale dot beside a name is almost always a presence icon rendered too small for its symbol to be legible — most often the white centre of the Do Not Disturb ring, or a hollow Offline/unknown circle that has lost its outline against a light background. Hover over the avatar or open the contact card and Teams spells the status out in words, which is the fastest way to settle it.
One thing a white dot is not: a status. A white or coloured dot on a chat or channel name in the left sidebar is an unread-activity marker, unrelated to presence. Those two dots sit only a few pixels apart in the interface, which is exactly why the question keeps getting asked.
Why the same status looks different in new Teams, classic Teams and mobile
This is the real reason people can't match what they're seeing to any documentation. New Teams, classic Teams, Teams on the web, the iOS and Android apps, and Outlook all draw the same presence values with slightly different icon sets, stroke weights and sizes. Do Not Disturb can be a fat solid red disc with a bold white bar in one client and a thin red ring with a white middle in another. Microsoft's support articles typically show one client's rendering, so the icon in front of you may genuinely not appear in any screenshot you can find. The underlying presence value coming from Microsoft 365 is identical in every case — only the drawing changes.
| What you see | Status | Notifications silenced? | Set by |
|---|---|---|---|
| White circle, red outline + dash (or red circle, white dash) | Do Not Disturb | Yes | Manual, or automatically while presenting |
| Solid red circle, no symbol | Busy | No | Calendar, call, or manual |
| Green circle, white check | Available | No | Activity, or manual |
| Yellow clock | Away / Be Right Back | No | ~5 min idle, or PC lock |
| Grey circle, white X | Offline | n/a | Signed out or no client |
| Plain hollow circle, no symbol | Offline / unknown | n/a | Presence can't be read |
| Purple arrow or purple person | Out of Office | No | Outlook automatic replies |
If you want the complete set — including the states not listed here — see the full reference on Microsoft Teams status icons.
What Do Not Disturb Actually Suppresses
Do Not Disturb mutes the interruption, not the message. Specifically it suppresses notification banners (the toast pop-ups in the corner of the screen) and notification sounds on that person's devices. Everything else carries on exactly as normal: messages are delivered, stored, and visible in Teams; @mentions register; files arrive; the person still shows as online and reachable to anyone who can see their presence.
Two things break through it by design:
- Priority contacts. Anyone added under Settings → Notifications → Priority notifications can reach that person with a full banner and sound even in Do Not Disturb.
- Urgent messages. Any Teams user can mark a message urgent before sending it. Urgent messages re-notify every 2 minutes for up to 20 minutes and cut through Do Not Disturb each time.
So if you genuinely need someone who's in Do Not Disturb, marking the message urgent is the sanctioned way to do it — no need to wait it out or chase them on another channel. The full behaviour, including how it interacts with Windows Focus Assist, is in Microsoft Teams Do Not Disturb: what it does (and doesn't).
When Teams Sets Do Not Disturb Automatically
Do Not Disturb is mostly a manual choice, but Teams does switch it on for you in one situation that catches people out: screen sharing and presenting. The moment you start sharing your screen or present in a meeting, Teams moves you to Do Not Disturb so that incoming message banners don't appear in front of an audience. That is the single most common reason someone finds themselves showing a red ring they never selected.
That status clears on its own when the share ends. If it sticks after you stop presenting, it's the client not re-registering presence rather than a setting — Teams status not updating has the fix order.
Everything else red comes from the calendar instead, and lands you on Busy, not Do Not Disturb: a meeting starting, a call connecting, a focus block synced from Viva Insights.
How to Set or Clear Do Not Disturb Yourself
To change it: click your profile picture in the top-right of Teams, click your current status, and pick a new one. To set Do Not Disturb with an automatic end time, choose Duration from the same menu and give it a limit — 1 hour, 4 hours, today, or a custom time — so Teams reverts you rather than leaving you dark for the rest of the week.
Worth knowing before you rely on it: Do Not Disturb does not hold your presence. If you set Do Not Disturb and then step away from your machine, Teams still applies its normal idle rules and flips you to Away after about five minutes — or instantly the moment you lock your PC. Neither Do Not Disturb nor a manually chosen Available survives that.