How to set up an out of office reply in windows 10 mail

Lori Kaufman is a technology expert with 25 years of experience. She’s been a senior technical writer, worked as a programmer, and has even run her own multi-location business. Read more.

If you’re going to be out of the office for a while, you can set up Mail in Windows 10 to reply automatically to any emails you receive, letting people know that you won’t be reading or answering emails during that time.

Currently, automatic replies in Mail are only supported for Outlook.com, Live.com, Hotmail, and Office 365 accounts.

To set up an out of office reply in Mail for one of those accounts, click the gear icon in the lower-left corner of the window.

Click “Automatic Replies” on the Settings pane that slides out on the right.

Select the account for which you want to send out automatic replies from the “Select an account” dropdown.

To turn on automatic replies for the selected account, click the “Send Automatic Replies” slider button so it turns a dark gray and reads On. Enter the message you want to send out as an automatic reply in the box below the slider button. If you want the reply to only be sent to people in your contacts list, check the “Send replies only to my contacts” box. You can set up automatic replies for all supported accounts in Mail, but you must do so separately for each.

Click anywhere to the left of the right pane to close it.

Now, when someone sends you an email, they will automatically receive the reply you set up.

You will still receive email messages sent to you while the automatic reply is on. A message banner displays at the top of the Mail window when automatic replies are on for the currently selected email account. To turn off automatic replies for the current account, click the “Turn off” button on the right side of the message banner. You can also click “Dismiss” to hide the banner in the current session (until you close and re-open Mail), if you’re not ready to turn off automatic replies. The banner will display again the next time you open Mail.

Unfortunately, there is no way of specifying a date range for the automatic replies in Mail, so don’t forget to turn them off using the banner at the top of the window or the Automatic Replies screen in the Settings.

If you are going to be out of the office for a longer time, you may configure Mail in Windows 10 to react to any emails you get immediately, notifying people that you will not be reading or responding to emails during that time. Automatic mail replies are now available exclusively for Outlook, Live, Hotmail, and Office 365 accounts. In this post, we will walk you through the whole process of configuring a Windows 10 Mail ‘Out of Office’ response.

Out of Office Response in Windows Mail

To configure Windows 10 Mail’s ‘Out of Office’ response, follow these steps:
Select the Search option. Enter Mail in the search field and select the option shown in the image:

As you will select the Mail option, the following screen will appear:

Select the Settings button from the bottom left of the screen, as seen in the preceding figure. The following menu will display on the right side of the screen as soon as you click the Settings button:

As seen in the figure above, select Automatic responses from the option that appears. When you pick Automatic responses, the following option will display on the right side of the screen:

Select the account for which you wish to send automated answers by selecting the Select an account drop-down menu. Then enable the Send automatic responses toggle option. In the Inside my organization text section, type the message you wish to send in response to an email. Select the Send replies outside of my organization checkbox. Then choose the Send answers exclusively to my contacts option.

Any email will now receive an automated response.

The following steps explain how to set up an out of office reply for your email in Outlook 2007. Previous versions of Outlook will follow along with the same lines as the instructions below.

How to setup and turn on your out of office reply:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook. Select the Tools menu, click Out of Office Assistant.

The Out of Office Assistant command does not appear unless you are using an Exchange Server e-mail account and you are in the Mail view.

2. At the out of office assistant window select the radio button “I am currently Out of the Office”.

3. At the out office assistant window, you will see a text box under the heading “AutoReply only once to each sender with the following”. Click into the white text box below the heading and type the message that you want to send to back to any received emails while you are out of the office E.G “I am currently out of the office until next week”.

4. Click Ok.

How to turn off your out of office reply:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook. Select the Tools menu, click Out of Office Assistant.

2. At the out of office assistant window select the radio button “I am currently Out of the Office”.

3. Click Ok.

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Si va a estar fuera de la oficina por un tiempo, puede configurar Mail en Windows 10 para que responda automáticamente a cualquier correo electrónico que reciba, para que la gente sepa que no leerá ni responderá correos electrónicos durante ese tiempo.

Actualmente, las respuestas automáticas en Mail solo son compatibles con las cuentas de Outlook.com, Live.com, Hotmail y Office 365.

Para configurar una respuesta de fuera de la oficina en Mail para una de esas cuentas, haga clic en el ícono de ajustes en la esquina inferior izquierda de la ventana.

Haga clic en “Respuestas automáticas” en el panel de configuración que se desliza hacia la derecha.

Seleccione la cuenta para la que desea enviar respuestas automáticas en el menú desplegable “Seleccionar una cuenta”.

Para activar las respuestas automáticas para la cuenta seleccionada, haga clic en el botón deslizante “Enviar respuestas automáticas” para que se vuelva gris oscuro y se lea Activado. Ingrese el mensaje que desea enviar como respuesta automática en el cuadro debajo del botón deslizante. Si desea que la respuesta solo se envíe a las personas de su lista de contactos, marque la casilla “Enviar respuestas solo a mis contactos”. Puede configurar respuestas automáticas para todas las cuentas admitidas en Mail, pero debe hacerlo por separado para cada una.

Haga clic en cualquier lugar a la izquierda del panel derecho para cerrarlo.

Ahora, cuando alguien le envíe un correo electrónico, recibirá automáticamente la respuesta que configuró.

Seguirá recibiendo mensajes de correo electrónico que se le envíen mientras la respuesta automática está activada. Se muestra un mensaje en la parte superior de la ventana de Correo cuando las respuestas automáticas están activadas para la cuenta de correo electrónico seleccionada actualmente. Para desactivar las respuestas automáticas para la cuenta actual, haga clic en el botón “Desactivar” en el lado derecho del banner del mensaje. También puede hacer clic en “Descartar” para ocultar el banner en la sesión actual (hasta que cierre y vuelva a abrir Mail), si no está listo para desactivar las respuestas automáticas. El banner se volverá a mostrar la próxima vez que abras Mail.

Desafortunadamente, no hay forma de especificar un rango de fechas para las respuestas automáticas en Mail, así que no olvide desactivarlas usando el banner en la parte superior de la ventana o la pantalla de Respuestas automáticas en la Configuración.

How to set up a Windows 10 Mail “Out of Office” response??

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The Windows 10 Mail app is capable of sending automatic replies so that you don’t have to worry about the emails that you receive while you are not on the desk. An “Out of Office” response is an automatic reply that can be set by you in the Mail app to be sent to the person who emailed you. Let’s discuss how to set up an ‘Out of Office’ reply in Windows 10 Mail.

To set up the “Out of Office” response in the Mail app

1. Open the Mail app
2. Have a look at the bottom of the left sidebar
3. Click on the Settings icon
4. Choose the Automatic replies option
5. Select your Mail account
6. Turn on the Send automatic replies option
7. Type the text that needs to be sent as an automatic reply
8. Tick the Send replies to only my contacts box

That’s it, you just finished setting up an Out of Office automatic reply in the Windows 10 Mail app. You need to know that currently only Outlook Mail, Hotmail, Live, and Office 365 are compatible with this feature. So, if you are using Gmail in the Mail app, you will not be able to send an Out of Office response to your senders.

Time for holidays! Is your Out of office already set? Do you use Office 365 within your organisation, then you can easily set up your Out-of-office or automatic e-mail replies via the tip below.

Start in Outlook Online

Browse
Click on settings at the top right – then on ‘View all Outlook settings’ at the bottom.

Set up automatic response in Microsoft Office 365 Online

Click on E-mail on the left.
Select automatic replies
Turn on “Automatic replies are enabled”
Select the period of your leave, or absence
Choose a personal message, and press save!

From now on, you are automatically away 😉 😉

An example of an Out of Office message

Thank you for your email. I’m currently offline until [date] to celebrate the holiday with my loved ones-without my phone in front of my face.

I’ll be sure to reply to your message when I wade through my inbox upon my return. If your message is time-sensitive, please send an email to [Contact Name] at [contact email].

Sending wishes for a happy holiday season,
X

Note: These instructions apply only to desktop Outlook clients that are configured to work with the Exchange email servers at Indiana University.

In Microsoft Outlook, you can set the Out of Office Assistant to automatically reply to people who send you mail, letting them know you won’t be able to reply to them immediately. The AutoReply feature will notify each sender only once, even if that person sends you several messages.

Note: Enabling your Out of Office reply can have the unfortunate side effect of verifying your email address to every spammer who sends you spam while you are away. If you are using Outlook 2010 or 2007, you can reduce this risk by enabling automatic replies only for people inside your organization, or by choosing My Contacts only on the Outside My Organization tab. If you are using Outlook 2003 or earlier, you may want to think twice about enabling this function, or consider the forwarding option detailed below.

To set up the Out of Office Assistant, follow the instructions below for your version of Outlook.

• Outlook 2010 and 2007
• Outlook 2003 and earlier

Outlook 2010 and 2007

1. In Outlook 2010, from the File tab in the upper left, select Automatic Replies .

In Outlook 2007, from the Tools menu, select Out of Office Assistant. . Then, select Send Out of Office auto-replies .

Outlook 2010 and 2007 have separate settings for email addresses inside and outside your organization. To send an Out of Office reply to people outside IU:

1. Click the Outside My Organization tab.
2. Select Auto-reply to people outside my organization .
3. Choose who will receive an auto-reply by selecting either My Contacts only or Anyone outside my organization .
4. Enter or edit the message to go to external contacts in the text field, as necessary.

Forwarding mail or moving it to a different folder

Optionally, you can add a rule to forward your mail to a different address or to move it to another folder. To set up a forwarding address:

1. In the lower left corner of the Out of Office Assistant, click Rules. .
2. Click Add Rule. , and then check the box marked Forward .
3. In the To. field, enter your forwarding address. Do not enter your normal delivery address for your forward rule, or you will create a mail loop.
4. From the menu next to “Method:”, choose how you want to receive your mail.

To direct incoming mail to a specific folder:

1. In the lower left corner of the Out of Office Assistant, click Rules. .
2. Click Add Rule. , and then select the box marked Move to .
3. Click Folder. to browse for the folder you want to use.
4. Select the folder name, and then click OK .

After making your selections for forwarding and routing incoming mail, click OK until all windows in the Out of Office Assistant are closed.

Outlook 2003 and earlier

1. From the Tools menu, select Out of Office Assistant. .
2. Select I am currently Out of the Office .
3. In the “AutoReply only once to each sender with the following text:” field, enter your away message.

Forwarding mail or moving it to a different folder

Optionally, you can add a rule to forward your mail to a different address or to move it to another folder. To set up a forwarding address:

1. Click Add Rule. , and then check the box marked Forward .
2. In the To. field, enter your forwarding address. Do not enter your normal delivery address for your forward rule, or you will create a mail loop.
3. From the menu next to “Method:”, choose how you want to receive your mail.

To direct incoming mail to a specific folder:

1. Click Add Rule. , and then select Move to .
2. Click Folder. to browse for the folder you want to use.
3. Select the folder name and click OK .

After making your selections for forwarding and routing incoming mail, click OK until all windows in the Out of Office Assistant are closed.

This is document aetz in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2021-09-07 17:15:31 .

Windows 10 has introduced the Mail app that’s a Universal app for your Outlook or Live account mails. you can sync other non-Microsoft email accounts to your Mail app. This mail cum calendar app is a three panel format with a plethora of customization features. You can set automatic replies in your Mail app to send a message by default to let senders know that your are out of office, you are on a vacation, you are at an important meeting, seminar etc.

Mail app includes other customizable features like Swipe Gestures, actions like delete, flag, move or mark as read/unread, email authoring features etc. The new Mail apps also support Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, Gmail, IMAP, POP and other popular accounts. The following tutorial will show you how to turn on or off Automatic replies in Mail app in Windows 10.

Steps to Turn On or Off Automatic Replies in Mail app in Windows 10

1. Open the Mail app and click and Settings.

2. Click on Automatic Replies in Settings.

3. Now under Mail, select the email account. If you have a single account, then you will find only Outlook. Select it. Now you will find another option Send Automatic Replies. Move the slider fromleft to right to turn on the feature. If you want to turn off automatic replies, then again move the slider from right to left.

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SOURCES CONSULTED:

If you are planning on enjoying a nice vacation and will be out of the office for some time, perhaps it is best to set one up auto reply than the program Windows 10 mail can send an email to anyone who will write you. You can create a message to automatically reply to any email you receive, thus alerting people to your absence and letting them know when you will be back at work.

Currently, automatic replies with the Windows 10 Mail app are only supported for addresses Outlook.com, Live.com, Hotmail e Office 365.

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Send out-of-office responses

To set up an out of office reply for one of these accounts, you must first launch the application Mail in Windows 10 and then click gear icon in the lower left corner of the window.

Click on “Automatic replies“In the box Settings that opened to your right. Select the account you want to send automatic replies to (if you have more than one set up).

To activate automatic replies for the selected account, click the scroll button “send automatic replies”So that it becomes a dark gray background and the writing appears Si.

Now enter the message you wish to send as an automatic reply in the box below the button. If you want the reply to be sent only to people in your contact list, check the box “Only send replies to personal contacts“.

You can set up automatic replies for all supported accounts but you need to do it separately for each account.

Now, when someone sends you an email, they will automatically receive the response you have set. Remember to deactivate this option when you get back to work: just reposition the button Send automatic replies su No and you can stop sending out-of-office responses.

Unfortunately, there is no way to specify a date range for automatic replies, which could come in handy and hopefully Microsoft will introduce it in the future.

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Audio Video Windows 10 Mail: Set up automatic reply

This tutorial explains how to set out of office reply in Windows 10 Mail app. This will be very helpful for those who use Windows 10 Mail app as their primary email app. Whenever you are on holidays or not able to respond to emails, you can enable out of office reply feature of Windows 10 Mail app. This feature lets you add a custom message that will be sent to senders automatically when out of office reply is on. You can also turn off this feature anytime you want.

You will also be able to set if you want to send out of office replies to everyone or only your contacts. In the screenshot visible below, you can see an out of office reply received by me, which was sent by Mail app automatically.

Note: This feature is currently available for Outlook, Hotmail, Live.com, and Office 365. It won’t work for Gmail, Yahoo!, and other email services.

How To Set Out Of Office Reply In Windows 10 Mail App?

Step 1: Open Mail app in your Windows 10 PC and select an account to login. I have used Outlook.com account.

Step 2: After login, click the Settings icon available at the bottom left side. Clicking that button will open all the options available under Settings at the right-side. There you will see “Automatic Replies” option. Click that option.

Step 3: Now select an account (if multiple accounts are connected). After selecting the preferred account (Outlook, Hotmail, etc.), you will see that “Send Automatic Replies” button is visible. Turn on that button.

Step 4: This is a very important step. In this step, you need to set up the out of office reply message. Also, you can set two different or same messages: one for inside your organization and other for outside of your organization. Also, if you want to send out of office reply message only to your contacts, then you can tick “Send replies only to my contacts” option.

Set options and click on somewhere at the left side. This will save your out of office reply settings.

Now whenever someone will send you an email, an automatic reply will be sent to the sender.

Step 5: This is also an essential step. When you are back at office, do not forget to turn off out of office reply. For this, open Mail app again and then you will see a banner at the top that “You’re sending automatic replies….“. Just next to that banner, there is Turn off button. Press that button.

This will turn off out of office reply messages.

The Verdict:

These are some simple steps using which you can set out of office reply in Windows 10 Mail app. Also whenever you don’t need to send out of office replies, you can simply turn them off in just a single click.

More like this

To set an Out of Office via Outlook Web App:

Use automatic replies in Outlook Web App whenever you want to let people who send you email know that you won’t be responding to their messages right away. After automatic replies are turned on, they’ll be sent once to each sender.

The email address you enter should be in the following format: [email protected]

Choose Settings > Set automatic replies.

Choose Settings > Options > Organise email > Automatic replies.

To set out of office via Outlook desktop App

Click File, then select the image below that matches your version of Outlook.

Select File > Automatic Replies.

Note: For Outlook 2007 choose Tools > Out of Office Assistant.

In the Automatic Replies box, select Send automatic replies.

Optionally, set a date range for your automatic replies. This will turn off automatic replies at the date and time you enter for the end time. Otherwise, you’ll need to turn off automatic replies manually.

Note: If you don’t see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.

On the Inside My Organisation tab, type the response that you want to send to teammates or colleagues while you are out of the office.

Note: Sending automatic replies to anyone outside my organisation

Use the following information to help you set up your automatic reply.

Don’t send automatic replies

Select this option to turn off automatic replies.

Send automatic replies

Select this option to turn on automatic replies.

Send replies only during this time period

Select this check box, and then set a start time and end time to control when automatic replies are sent. If you don’t set a time period, your automatic reply will remain on until you turn it off. You’ll be reminded your automatic replies are turned on each time you sign in to your mailbox.

Send a reply once to each sender inside my organisation with the following message

Use the text box to create a message that is sent only to senders who are inside your organisation. This option may not be available.

Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organisation

Select this check box if you want automatic replies to be sent to senders outside your organisation.

If you select the check box to send automatic replies to persons outside your organisation, two other options are made available. Choose one of the following:

Send replies only to senders in my Contacts list

Select this to limit automatic replies to senders who are in your Contacts folder. Senders who aren’t in your Contacts folder won’t receive the automatic reply.

Send replies to all external senders

Select this to send your reply to all senders outside your organisation.

Send a reply once to each sender outside my organisation with the following message

If you select Send replies to all external senders, in the text box type the reply message you want sent.

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23 November 2021

Outlook can setup an Out of Office response, depending on the type of email connection but there’s a better way that works for everyone.

‘Out of Office’ or ‘Vacation’ autoresponses will automatically reply to incoming messages. Clever systems have options like different messages for people inside or outside an organization or only those in your Contacts list.

In this article we have some cheeky vacation replies, but you can write whatever you like. The New York Times got some suggestions from the real world.

You can set the range of dates that the Vacation responder will work for. Some businesses like their staff to setup an ‘Out of Office’ message over weekends, but most people save it for longer breaks.

Vacation autoresponses also can limit the number of replies to the same email address, for example only autoreply once or only every few days.

Setting up ‘Out of Office’ doesn’t stop you from checking your email anyway (some of us can’t resist a peek even on holidays).

What sends the Vacation messages?

Out of Office messages are almost always sent by the mail host or server – not Outlook software.

That makes sense. The server runs 24/7, so monitoring incoming messages and replying automatically is a logical job for it.

You don’t have to leave your computer and Outlook on while you’re away because the server is handling it all for you.

Server based responses

The best way to setup Out of Office or Vacation responses is on the mail host or server. Setup at the server / web page level ensures that the response is properly configured and has all the available options.

Outlook software has ‘Automatic Replies (Out of Office)’ and we’ll demonstrate that below. But Outlook can only do it for some types of email connection.

That’s because Outlook is sending your autoresponse request to the mail host for configuration and action.

The actual responses are done automatically by the server not by Outlook software.

For that reason, we suggest bypassing Outlook software and setting up your Vacation message at the server / web page level. That ensure your configuration is done correctly by the system that will be doing the work, not Outlook acting as a messenger.

It’s also quite possible that the server/mail host has slightly different and better options than available in Outlook software.

Office 365 / Exchange Server hosting

Exchange Server mailboxes (hosted by Microsoft Office 365 or elsewhere) have Out of Office responders.

Exactly what you see depends on the version of Exchange Server and the IT managers configuration.

Go to Outlook Web Access aka Outlook Web App, the web browser version of your mailbox. Settings | Automatic Replies.

Firstly there’s the message to send to people inside your organization.

It’s not obvious, but scroll down to see the message option for ‘outsiders’. Either only Contact list entries or all incoming messages from outside the organization.

Outlook.com

Outlook.com is similar to Exchange Server but with some extra options.

There’s the usual options to respond between certain dates and also to Contacts only.

Calendar options are also available. Your online calendar can be blocked for the vacation period. New appointment invitations for that date range are automatically declined while any existing or regular meetings are also declined.

Gmail

Google’s Gmail has its own Out of Office feature under Settings | General | Vacation Responder.

There are options for the date range (leave the ‘Last day’ off so the response runs until further notice).

Only send a response to people in my Contacts – limits who get a reply email.

Remember to Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Other Mail accounts

For other mail hosts, for example, mailboxes from Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) should have an ‘Out of Office’ option. It depends on their mail hosting software and setup which varies a lot.

Go to your web based mailbox at the ISP and look in the Settings for something like ‘Out of Office’, ‘Vacation Response’ or ‘Automatic Replies’.

Outlook for Windows

Go to the File | Info pane, select the correct mail account then choose Automatic Replies.

If there’s no ‘Automatic Replies’ option then it’s not possible for that mail account. For example, this POP mailbox:

The Outlook ‘Out of Office’ options should be similar to Exchange Server with different messages for inside and outside an organization. These are the Outlook 2016 for Windows options:

Outlook for Mac

Outlook 2016 for Mac has ‘Out of Office’ on the Tools tab:

Testing your Automatic Reply

If you want to test your auto reply, ask someone to email you while the feature is on. Or send an email to yourself from another account outside the organization.

I spent a little while looking up solutions on adding an automatic reply, or out of office message, to a Shared Mailbox. Unfortunately, I didn’t come across any easy ways to do it via Outlook. Some of them required adding the Shared Mailbox as a separate account, or creating an Outlook rule that has the server reply using a specific message.

Luckily, there’s an extremely easy way to do it via the Outlook Web App. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Log into the Outlook Web App at using your own Office 365 credentials
2. Click on your profile image (or placeholder image) on the top right
3. Choose Open another mailbox
4. Type in the name or email address of the Shared Mailbox and select it
5. Click the settings cog on the top right and then click Automatic replies
6. Configure your automatic reply and you’re done.

How to block out of office reply emails in Outlook?

When sending email to a large group of recipients, you may be unwilling to receive out of office replies as these emails make no sense for you. This article will introduce a method for you to block out of office reply emails in Outlook.

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You can create a rule to block out of office reply emails in Outlook. Please do as follows.

1. Click Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts under Home tab. See screenshot:

2. In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click the New Rule button.

3. In the first Rules Wizard, click Apply rule on messages I receive, and then click the Next button. See screenshot:

4. In the second Rules Wizard, you need to:

4.1 Select the with specific words in the subject option in the Step 1 box;

4.2 Click the link text “specific words” in Step 2 box;

4.3 Enter all words which relative with out of office you will receive in the email subject and click the OK button;

4.4 Click the Next button. See screenshot:

5. You can move all out of office reply emails to a specified folder or just delete it directly. Here I select the delete it option in the following Rules Wizard. Click the Next button to go ahead.

6. In the next select exceptions rules wizard, click the Next button directly without any selection.

7. In the last Rules Wizard, name the rule as you need and then click the Finish button. See screenshot:

8. Click the OK button in the Rules and Alerts dialog box to finish the rule.

From now on, when receiving out of office reply emails which the subject matches what you have specified above, it will be deleted from the Inbox or moved to certain folder immediately.

With the holidays going on, and the fact that you only receive the Automatic Replies (Out of Office) notices once, I’d like to keep track of who is away when.

As most people tend to write their substitute or an emergency number in the Automatic Reply message as well, I thought storing them into a separate folder (or having them stand out more so I don’t forget to move them) would be a good approach. I can then simply search within that folder

How would I move or color code these Automatic Replies without risking to also move or color code other messages?

Keeping received Automatic Replies (also known as Out of Office or OOF message) like that for a while can indeed act like a quick and handy reference.

Creating a message rule to move these messages directly is easy enough but unless you regularly monitor that folder or work from a Search Folder such as the Today’s Unread Mail folder, you might miss the initial notification.

Also, you might want to be a bit more selective in which Automatic Reply message you’d like to keep. Making them stand out more between your regular mail so you can choose to move or delete them might be the better approach.

Moving Automatic Replies via a rule

If you want to automatically move the Automatic Replies that you receive to a separate folder, you can create the following rule:

• Apply this rule after the message arrives
• which is an automatic reply
• move it to the specified rule

Note: In Outlook 2007, the condition is called “which is an Out of Office message”.

Color coding OOF messages

To color code Automatic Replies without risking that regular email messages also get color coded, you can setup a Conditional Formatting rule in the following way:

1. Open the Conditional Formatting dialog:
   • Outlook 2007
     View-> Arrange By-> Custom…-> button Automatic Formatting…
   • Outlook 2010 / 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / Office 365
     tab View-> View Settings-> button Conditional Formatting…
   • Office 365 Single Line Ribbon
     View-> Current View-> View Settings…-> button Conditional Formatting
2. Press the Add button and name the rule. For instance: Automatic Replies.
3. Press the Font… button to set the highlighting options of your choice.

Create a new Conditional Formatting rule with a unique color.

This manual Conditional Formatting filter will only apply to Automatic Replies.

Note: If you are receiving Automatic Replies which are not coming from an Exchange server, then you might need to look at other specific message properties. For instance, most subjects have a specific prefix or the message contains specific words in the message body for which you can create a filter.

Extra Tip 1: Mail Tips

If you are sending to someone within your Exchange organization, a mail tip could display the Automatic Reply message for this person as well, regardless whether or not you’ve already receive such a notice (requires Outlook 2010 or later and Exchange 2010 or later).

Extra Tip 2: Quick Steps

Instead of manually moving the Automatic Replies, you could create a Quick Step to move the message and directly mark it as read as well.

This saves you from a couple of clicks and the need to look up the folder. You can even add a keyboard shortcut to the Quick Step in case you prefer to process you mail via a keyboard.

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1. Setting up automatic replies for users
2. Set up the automatic reply via PowerShell
3. Redirecting a mailbox as an additional option

This function is used when employees are not present in the company, due, for example, to vacation, illness, or other reasons, and cannot be reached by email during this time.

The automatic reply can be configured both in the Outlook client and via OWA. The user writes the text, which can be different for internal and external recipients. These replies can be limited to a certain period of time. Rules can also be configured, for example, to forward incoming mail.

To avoid an email loop, the automatic reply only responds once per sender. Hence, a sender who sends a message to a mailbox with an out-of-office reply will receive only one reply.

Setting up automatic replies for users ^

In some cases, the Exchange administrator or the service desk has to activate an automatic reply for a user. This is the case, for example, when the OWA is not accessible from outside the company, and the user cannot access their mailbox from home.

The easiest and fastest way is for you, the administrator, to access the user’s mailbox via the Exchange ECP by selecting Another user from the dropdown menu in the upper right corner.

Switch to the settings of another mailbox in the ECP

Select the user for whom you want to set the automatic reply. The user’s mailbox options are displayed. Here, you can set up the out-of-office reply on the right side under Set up an automatic reply message.

Link to the automatic reply settings

Set up the automatic reply via PowerShell ^

Another possibility would be to configure the automatic reply via PowerShell. The Set-MailboxAutoreplyConfiguration cmdlet is provided for this purpose.

A simple command looks like this:

The parameters Identity, InternalMessage, and ExternalMessage get their values from variables in our example. We used the same message text for internal and external recipients. This is defined by a Here-string in PowerShell:

In addition, you can use the Starttime and Endtime parameters to specify the period during which the out-of-office message should be valid. To do this, however, you have to invoke the AutoReplyState parameter with the scheduled option.

An already configured automatic reply can be read using Get-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration.

Redirecting a mailbox as an additional option ^

The only drawback with both ECP and PowerShell is that apparently, rules cannot be edited or created in the automatic reply. For example, to redirect the mailbox via ECP or PowerShell, you could issue the following PowerShell command:

This command would correspond to the following setting in the user mailbox in the ECP:

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If you want to redirect the mailbox in addition to the out of office reply you have to do this separately

The disadvantage of such a separate redirection is that the user himself cannot switch off the mail forwarding, so you, as the administrator, have to keep it in mind.

Outlook supports the ability to send automatic email replies to senders. It’s a great way of letting people know that you’re on vacation, away from the office for a short time, or simply thanking them for getting in touch.

To set up automatic email replies in Outlook, first create a new email message that will serve as subject and message body for your automatic reply.

From the Outlook menu, select Select File > Save As and save the message as an Outlook Template (.oft).

We now need to create an out-of-office rule that will send the email message you created when someone sends you an email.

Click File > Rules & Alerts.

Now click the New Rule button.

In the Start from a blank rule panel, select Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next.

You can tailor the automatic sending of email responses using a variety of conditions, which are listed on screen.

If you wish to respond to every message, leave the condition list unchecked and click Next. Confirm your selection when asked.

In the next step of the Rules Wizard, check reply using a specific template and in Step 2, click the underlined link text “a specific template”.

Navigate to your saved template and then select Open and Next.

Check any exceptions you wish to make to the rule and then click Next.

Give your rule a name. By default, you’ll see that Turn on this rule is checked, meaning the rule will run immediately. If you wish to enable the rule now, click Finish. Otherwise, uncheck this box and enable the rule later. Head back to File > Manage Rules & Alerts to enable the rule on a later date, and disable the rule when you return.

Note that you must leave Outlook running for automatic replies to be sent.

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The mail client in Windows 10 is easy to set up and has a simple, touch-friendly interface, but it’s capable of handling even complex email scenarios with aplomb.

New default apps are part and parcel of major new Windows releases. Long gone is Outlook Express, and the new Windows 10 Mail client is here to fill its role, now with touch support and a new minimalist, flat design. It’s also a big advance over the Windows 8.1 Mail app, which I’ve nevertheless used with satisfaction. Here I’ll take a closer look at the new mail client app’s capabilities to find out whether it’s worthy of being your default mail client.

Windows 8 featured a very basic modern app for mail, which was improved in 8.1 with things like drag-and-drop for moving mail among folders. This new Windows 10 Mail app, which comes preinstalled along with Calendar, is actually part of the free version of Microsoft’s Office Mobile productivity suite. It’s called Outlook Mail on Windows 10 Mobile running on smartphones and phablets, but just plain Mail on Windows 10 for PCs. It’s one more reason, along with the other touch-friendly Office apps that will be free at the Windows Store, to make the free upgrade to Windows 10.

Setting Up Mail in Windows 10
If you’ve already set up the default Windows Mail app on a Windows 8.x PC, you’re done as soon as you link the PC with your Windows account. I’ve found this one of the coolest things about modern Windows: settings syncing includes full email credentials. This is not something you can even say for Apple’s ecosystem. If I sign into my Apple account on a Mac and then on an iPhone, I still have to set up my mail accounts separately on each device. Not so with Windows 10: Everything just works.

If you do need to set up your mail account for the first time, the Mail client supports all the standard mail systems, including (of course) Outlook.com, Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, and any POP or IMAP account you may have. (POP isn’t a choice with Windows 8.1’s Mail client, which requires the superior IMAP.) Simply enter your address and password for any of the account types, and Mail will figure out the required server settings. A big advantage of using the Mail client instead of just the Web browser version of your email is that new messages will appear in the Action Center’s notifications pane, from which you can reply.

Interface
As I mentioned, Mail’s interface is spare and clear, mostly getting out of the way so you can concentrate on your email’s contents. The Inbox view shows a left rail of buttons that you can expand with the three-bar “hamburger” icon. At the top are three simply designed buttons, a Plus sign for starting a new email, a head-and-shoulders icon to switch among multiple accounts, and a folders button. At the bottom are four more buttons, for Mail, Calendar, Feedback, and Settings. The Mail button seems superfluous, since you’re already in mail, but perhaps it’s for consistency with the Calendar app interface.

When you have no email open, you’ll see a cloud image in the right panel where mail contents normally show up; you can change this to any image of your choice.

Swipe actions are a new treat for Windows Mail users. These will be familiar from smartphone mail clients. Swiping on mail entry from left to right flags it, and from right to left archives it—useful for touch screen users. For keyboard and mouse users, you have hover-over quick action buttons for both those actions plus deletion. In both modes, a multiple-selection button lets you check boxes in each mail to Archive, Delete, or move them with drag-and-drop to a folder. You can change the swipe actions to other actions, such as marking as read or deleting the mail.

Mail’s Conversation view is easy to use. There’s a triangular pointer next to entries with multiple messages; just tap this to expand the conversation. For my money, this view is infinitely clearer than Gmail’s byzantine conversation view, with all those collapsed messages and different reply boxes, and sometime no reply option showing.

Even in Tablet mode, I found interface buttons a bit small, though I was able to tap the ones I wanted on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

Composing Emails
When you tap the big Plus sign, you see a very simple mail-composing pane. Typing in the address box drops down an autocomplete list of contacts starting with the letters you type, with the most frequently emailed contacts appearing at the top. As you enter message text, the Format options let you apply bold, italics, and underling styles, and a dropdown box lets you go even deeper into formatting, letting you change font, size, color, and highlighting. You can even use strikeout or subscript and superscript.

A separate Paragraph button drops down choices for bullets and numbering, indentation, alignment, and line spacing. In a word, you have free rein to style your message to taste.

The Insert tab offers four clear buttons for adding files, tables, pictures, and links to your email body. Each is sort of a subset of the menus in the free Word app that’s available in the app store. For example, when you insert a picture, you can resize and reposition it, and even crop and rotate. Table options include auto-fitting contents, text rotation, color patterns, and header row options, but you can’t sort columns. You can designate an email as of high importance (with a red exclamation point) or low importance (with a green down arrow). And finally, you can spell-check your work.

The Way to Mail?
Even though the Mail app is designed for touch, using it with a keyboard and mouse is completely natural and fluid. It’s a clear interface that works well in either scenario. The ability to connect multiple accounts and fluid formatting and insertion choices mean it’s up to all but the most-demanding email tasks. The integration with the Action Center is another plus for the app, as is the fact that once you set it up on one Windows 10 device, any other you sign into will require no setup whatsoever.

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Microsoft Outlook has a feature known as Automatic Replies (out of office). This feature enables a user to have e-mail automatically responded to when out of the office. You can find this feature under the File tab in Microsoft Outlook.

Unfortunately, this feature requires your e-mail server to be running on Microsoft Exchange to work. If your e-mail server is not running on Microsoft Exchange, you won’t be able to use the out of office feature.

If your e-mail account is not using Microsoft Exchange (i.e., POP or IMAP), you can still simulate automatic replies using an Outlook e-mail template and Outlook rules.

Follow the steps below to set up your out of office message.

1. On the File tab, click the Automatic Replies (Out of Office) option.
2. On the Automatic Replies window, select the Send Automatic Replies option.
3. If you want your out of office message to be sent only for a specific time, check the box for Only send during this time range. Then select the Start time and End time for the out of office message to be sent.
4. Enter the message you want to be sent in the bottom half of the Automatic Replies window.
5. Click Ok to save the message and out of office settings.

If you want to create rules for how some messages are handled while out of the office, click the Rules button on the Automatic Replies window.

Whether you’re on holiday, on a business trip, sick, or not contactable for other reasons: an automatic out-of-office reply informs your e-mail contacts about your absence. Depending on your needs, you can also use Outlook auto reply to refer the query to a colleague who is covering for you during your absence. The wording of the ideal out-of-office e-mail depends on the context.

If you’ve already created the text for your out-of-office message, you usually want to generate it as an automatic reply in your e-mail programme. In Outlook, you can specify who gets your out-of-office reply and set up rules ahead of time so that e-mails from designated people are answered differently than other contacts. We’ll show you how to set out-of-office in Outlook according to your needs.

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1. Setting up Outlook out-of-office reply
2. Specifying rules when setting up out-of-office in Outlook

Setting up Outlook out-of-office reply

Most of Outlook’s important functions are found in this overview

Following these easy steps, you’ll learn both the basic and advanced options for how to create an out-of-office message. In Outlook, begin by clicking “File” in the top left corner. This will bring up a menu window with your account information and some options.

Click on the “Automatic Replies (Out of Office)” button. This opens a new window.

Out-of-office reply is easy to set up in Outlook

You can enable the automatic reply function in this window and set a time for Outlook to send your out-of-office message. If your absence is effective immediately, simply leave the “Only send during this time range:” box unchecked.

There are two tabs above the message box which allow you to set up different Outlook away messages for internal and external contacts. Any e-mail contacts who share the same domain (after the @) with you will receive the automatic reply for “Inside My Organisation.”

It may be useful to set up separate out-of-office messages for external contacts and colleagues

All other contacts will receive the out-of-office reply you designated on the right tab. If you prefer the replies to be identical, simply copy (Ctrl C) and paste (Ctrl V) the message from the first tab into the second tab (note that right-click copy and paste is disabled in the out-of-office assistant). You might prefer using different replies, a more casual or light-hearted one for colleagues, and a strictly professional tone for clients, for example. You can also specify that only people in your address book receive an automatic response.

When your out-of-office reply messages are ready to go, click “OK.” Your automatic reply, including the out-of-office message, is now scheduled in Outlook.

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Specifying rules when setting up out-of-office in Outlook

On holiday and don’t want to see e-mails from colleagues or customers, but want to be available for your boss in case something urgent arises? Waiting impatiently for an answer from a sales partner and want to see it right away? Want to at least be available to your department? Outlook can accommodate such instances in “Automatic Reply Rules.” Just click the “Rules” button in the bottom left corner of the automatic replies dialogue box.

In this overview, you can follow easy steps to set rules for automatically replying to e-mails

With “Add Rule,” you can now follow the easy steps to define rules for specific e-mail contacts.

Outlook offers an extensive menu of options for setting specific rules for automatic replies

From top to bottom, you can specify the following criteria to set up your reply rules:

• From…: Here you can designate specific contacts. Outlook then responds to e-mails from these contacts according to the rules you set. You can also click the button to select contacts from the address book.
• Sent To…: This can specify categories of e-mails in which you are one of the addressees, e.g. as a member of a distribution list such as a listserv. You can also specify whether only e-mails addressed directly to you are subject to the special rules and/or e-mails that are sent to you in cc.
• Subject: If the subject contains certain words (such as “Important”), the response will be generated according to your specified rule.
• Message body: You can also set up a specific response in cases where certain phrases (for example, “urgent answer” or the name of a particularly important project) appear in the body of the e-mail.

The following actions are available:

• Alert with: This option specifies that certain e-mails will generate a specific additional reply. This can even include a sound effect.
• Delete: E-mails that meet your predetermined criteria will simply be deleted when you select this action.
• Move to: This allows you to move e-mails to another folder entirely, which is useful if you want to store certain e-mails in one place.
• Copy to: A copy of the relevant e-mail will be sent to a specified folder while also leaving the original in the main inbox.
• Forward: Forwards specific e-mails to another address, e.g. to your personal e-mail. Under “Method” you can choose between three display options: “Standard,” “Leave message intact,” or “Insert message as an attachment.”
• Reply with: This can be used to set up an individual out-of-office reply to specific e-mails. Write the text like an e-mail in a new dialogue box.
• Custom: This option allows you to upload special implementation templates. This is intended for experts.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, you might want to learn how to set out of office in Outlook using the “Advanced” button at the top right. This allows you to set more specific rules.

Outlook offers extensive options for special rules for automatic responses

A common request from clients who utilize shared mailboxes for communication between their customers is to configure automated responses. Most people are aware of how to set up an out-of-office reply in Outlook for their personal mailbox. However, for a shared mailbox, this process is not as straightforward. Additionally, the message usually needs to be sent to every message sent to the mailbox. The standard behavior for automated replies is that they are sent only once to each unique recipient. For something like a customer service mailbox, it is best always to send a reply to ensure the necessary communication is seen.

While there are multiple ways to accomplish this request, the best method I have found is doing so via the use of Microsoft Power Automate, previously known as Microsoft Flow. This free service for Office 365 users is a powerful automation tool that was designed to increase productivity via the use of workflows.

While much can be written about this service and its capabilities, I am going to focus this post on how to accomplish this one specific task.

How to Set Up Automatic Replies From Shared Mailboxes:

1. From the Office 365 Admin Center go to Users > Active Users and find the account tied to the shared mailbox and assign the necessary Microsoft Power Automate Free license.
   
2. From the same location, select the account tied to the shared mailbox and reset the password. Make note of this password for use in the next step.
3. Using the credentials, you just set in step 2, sign into the shared mailbox at office.com.
4. Launch the Power Automate app from the Office 365 landing page.
   
5. From the Power Automate homepage, select Create on the left side bar (1) and then Automated flow from the center of the page (2).
   
6. In the new window, give your flow a name (1) and search for new message in the Triggers search field (2). Select the When an email arrives (v3) trigger (3). Click the Create button (4).
   
7. Click advanced options (1), enter the address of the mailbox in the To: field (2), and then click the +New step button (3).
   
8. Type reply in the search field (1) and select Reply to an email (v3) from the search results.
   
9. Click in the Message Id field (1) and select Message Id from the Dynamic Content list (2).
   
10. Populate the Body field with what you want your automated reply message to be (1), and then enter the address of the shared mailbox in the Mailbox Address field (2).
    
11. Click the Save button and you are all set! I recommend testing the flow by sending an email from both an internal and external address to the shared mailbox.

And that’s how easy Microsoft Power Automate makes setting up automatic responses from shared mailboxes. If you have any questions about this configuration or anything else regarding Microsoft Power Automate, please contact us at any time.

If you’ll be away from your email for an extended period, such as on holiday or during college breaks, you should set up your Out of Office to automatically notify people that you won’t be able to reply right away.

1. In the top right, click Settings (Cog Icon) > Settings.
2. In the General tab, scroll to Out of Office Reply and turn it on or off.
3. Customize your message to include the relevant information, the dates you want it to be sent and who you want it to be sent to.
4. At the bottom, click Save Changes.

If your Out of Office is on and you log in to Gmail you will see a banner across the top of your inbox that shows the subject of the Out of Office. Click End now if you want to turn it off or ignore it to leave it on.

You’re email signature will display in the bottom of your Out of Office.

Your auto-reply starts at 12:00 AM (midnight) on the start date and ends at 11:59 PM on the end date, unless you end it earlier. In most cases, your auto-response is only sent to people the first time they message you. So if someone continues to email you for the duration of the time you are out of the office, they may not get any more replies.

Here are the times someone may see your vacation response more than once:

– If the same person contacts you again after four days and your auto-reply is still on, they’ll see your auto-response again.
– Your auto-response starts over each time you edit it. If someone gets your initial auto-response, then emails you again after you’ve edited your response, they’ll see your new response.
– If you use Gmail through your work, school, or other organization, you can choose whether your response is sent to everyone or only people in your organization.
Note: Messages sent to your spam folder and messages addressed to a mailing list you subscribe to won’t get your auto-response.

Finally, it’s the day that you’ve been looking forward to for so long. You take one last look at your desk and are ready to leave the office for your vacation and swap the office chair for a lounge chair on the beach. However, your gaze drifts over your computer for a second too long and you immediately get a bad feeling at the thought of the overcrowded email inbox that you can expect to find after the holiday. At the last second, you remember: You have to write and activate the out-of-office message for your email.

Writing the perfect out-of-office reply is very important as it can otherwise lead to confusion for coworkers and clients as well as more work for yourself after you return. If you don’t clearly state the dates of your absence, it is likely that you’ll receive multiple emails and follow-ups clogging your inbox. Additionally, it is important to find someone who can be contacted in your absence and give information about that contact. You surely don’t want to get phone calls about urgent matters while lying on the beach!

Here you can learn how you can find important emails in your inbox faster!

How to set up an automatic reply in Outlook

Step 1: Open Outlook and select File. There you can Automatic Replies.

Note: If you don’t see the field Automatic Replies then click here to learn how to use rules to create an out of office message.

Step 2: The Automatic Replies Box opens and you can select Send automatic replies. You can either manually turn the automatic replies off after your vacation or you can set a date and select only send during this time rage.

Step 3: On the Inside My Organization tab, you can type the response you want to send to your colleagues during the time you are out of office. For clients and people outside the office you can type a different text selecting Outside my organization. If you don’t want Outlook to answer every newsletter, advertisement and junk email, you also have the option to choose My contacts only.

How to write the perfect out-of-office message

Writing the perfect out of office message can be challenging. You want to keep it short but you also need to give all the important details. In the following, you can read about what to include and what to avoid in the perfect out-of-office message for your Outlook:

• • Don’t just reactivate the message you typed during your last time off, as it is important to give the exact dates of your time off to avoid confusion from coworkers and clients – always double check here!
  • If you don’t give a reason for your absence, coworkers might still try to contact you. They’ll be less likely to call you if they know that you are taking your well-deserved vacation time off!
  • Provide names, email addresses and/or phone numbers of people who can help while you’re out. If you handle multiple areas, make sure to specify each person’s area of expertise so your contacts know where to go for assistance!

• Avoid giving too much detail! Simply noting that you are taking personal time off or that you are on vacation is absolutely enough. Rather keep it short and simple instead of giving your exact plans.

• Don’ttry to be funny as this can easily give the wrong impression – except if you’re a comedy writer of course 😉 keep it professional!
• As your out-of-office message could go to your manager as well as to your clients, avoid typing mistakes with careful proofreading!

Here you can learn how you can find important emails in your inbox faster!

Out-of-office message example

An example for your out-of-office message could be:

“Thanks for your email. I am out of the office as I am taking some personal time off and will not return until Nov. 18. If you need immediate assistance, you can contact Olivia Jones at (email and phone number) for sales matters as well as Charlie Brown at (email and phone number) for marketing questions. Otherwise, I will respond to your email as soon as possible after my return.”

With this article you should be prepared to write the perfect out-of-office reply in your Outlook and therefore nothing should get in the way of your vacation. Enjoy your well-deserved time off knowing that everything at the office is handled. Good luck and don’t forget your sun protection at the beach!

Aline & the Lookeen Team

Date: 29. Jun 2021
Author: Aline Gengenbach
Tags:

Did an employee just leave for vacation and forget to do something? Below the instructions will show you how to add an out of office message in Outlook for a mailbox you don’t have the login/password for. Also referred to as Automatic Replies (Out of Office).

Please note this does assume you have “Full Access Permission” to the other user’s mailbox. The following will work for Microsoft Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013 as well as Exchange 2007, 2010, and 2013.

Set Out of Office Message in Outlook

Step 1

We are first going to show you how to add Full Access Permission to the users mailbox. If you already have this, skip to Step 3. First you will want to launch the Exchange Management Console or open MMC and use the Exchange Snap-In. Browse to Recipient Configuration and click on “Mailbox.”

Step 2

Right click on the mailbox of the user you are wanting to add the out of office message to and click on “Manage Full Access Permission.” Then add yourself to their mailbox.

Note, if you are running Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 you can open the other user’s mailbox from within OWA. No need to proceed with the rest of the steps below.

Step 3

Go to the Start Menu and click on “Control Panel.”

Step 4

In the search box on the top right, search for “mail” and then click on the Mail (32-bit) Icon.

Step 5

Click on “Show Profiles.”

Step 6

Click on Add and name your profile. In my example I am naming it “temp-profile” because after we are done adding the out of office message, we can delete the profile. After naming it click OK.

Step 7

Select “Manually configure server settings or additional server types.” Depending on your version of Outlook the wording will vary a little here.

Step 8

Select “Microsoft Exchange or compatible service.”

Step 9

Now enter the name of your mail server and then the name of the mailbox for which you are wanting to add the out of office message to.

Step 10

Click on “Finish.”

Step 11

Select “Prompt for a profile to be used” under the Mail options in the control panel.

Step 12

Now launch Microsoft Outlook and it will prompt you to choose a profile. Choose the profile you just created.

Step 13

In Outlook, go up to File and click on Automatic Replies (Out of Office).

Step 14

Now simply add the message you want, click OK and your done! You can then remove that temporary profile.

If You’re Using an Exchange Account

Native out-of-office messages using Outlook are only available to Microsoft Exchange users, but you can work with a non-Exchange account using rules. We’ll set up a non-Exchange message in the next section, but this section covers Exchange users.

Microsoft Exchange is an email server application available in network environments that use mainly the Microsoft operating system. You can set up an Exchange server if you use Microsoft services such as Azure. If you’re an employee at an office that hosts its own email server and the organization uses Microsoft software, you might have an Exchange server as your email service.

You can find out if you have an Exchange account by clicking the “File” tab and then clicking “Info” in the left side panel.

(Account information window)

In the image above, you can see that the account type is IMAP/SMTP because a Gmail email server has been configured with Outlook. If you have an Exchange server configured, then this dropdown would show “Exchange” below your email address. If you’re using an employer email account, then you might not be able to change settings for the Exchange server account. This is because configurations are set on the server, but you can still send an out-of-office message.

If you have Exchange configured for an account, you’ll find an “Automatic Replies” button that lets you configure an out-of-office message.

(Button to set out-of-office message)

Click the button and a configuration window displays.

In the first window displayed, click “Send Automatic Replies.” Specify a date and time for the messages to start being sent, and then a date and time for them to stop. Notice that you can specify a message for people within the organization, and then you can set a different message for emails received from outside of your organization. Click “OK” and your out-of-office message is set.

Creating a Template

Before you can use an out-of-office message with Outlook rules, you must create a template. An Outlook template is just a saved file from Outlook. Click “New Email” in the “Home” tab. In the window that opens, type your message as if you’re just typing a new email message for a recipient.

Click the “File” tab, and you open the “Account Information” page. Click “Save As” in the left panel, and a new dialog box opens. At the bottom of this dialog box is the “Save as type” dropdown. Choose “Outlook Template (*.oft)” option and type a name for your template such as “Out of Office.”

Remember the location of where you save the template file, because you’ll need this file when you set up your out-of-message rule. You can create an OFT file for any message template, which will save you time when you must send the same message frequently to different recipients.

After this template is created, you can now set up an out-of-office message rule.

Creating an Out-of-Office Message for Other Email Services

Although there isn’t a native feature in Outlook for out-of-office messages using other email services than Exchange, you can use Outlook’s “Rules” feature to create them. We’ll cover more rule features in chapter 13, but this section focuses on one rule option that sends a message each time you receive a message. This out-of-office message will be sent for any email senders (outside or inside the organization), so the message you choose should cover any sender including coworkers, customers or vendors.

The “Rules” feature is in the “Home” tab. In the “Move” category, you’ll see a button named “Rules.”

(Move category in the “Home” tab)

Click the button and you see several options.

(Rules dropdown options)

If you have an email selected, the first two options let you quickly set rules to move messages sent by the sender to a folder or move messages sent to the email account to another folder. These two rules help you manage messages when you have two separate accounts configured in Outlook.

The “Create Rule” option creates a new rule in Outlook based on the current email selected. If you want to view currently configured rules or edit them, click the “Manage Rules & Alerts.” Since we’re creating a new rule unrelated to the selected email, click “Manage Rules & Alerts” and a new window opens.

(Manage rules and alerts window)

Click the “New Rule” button and a configuration manager steps you through creating a new rule. The first window asks you on what objects should the rule be performed.

(Select an object to set a rule)

The last section contains the option to “Apply rule on messages I receive.” Choose this option and click “Next.”

(Select a date range condition)

The next widow shows several conditions to choose from. Out-of-office messages are set when you know when you’ll be away from the office during a specific date range. Scroll to the “received in a specific date span” option and click the check box. Click the linked text (labeled “in a specific date range”) and a window opens where you choose your date range. Once you’ve chosen a range, click “Next.”

(Reply using a specific template)

Choose the “reply using a specific template” option, and then click the “a specific template” link to open a window where you choose a message template. The template contains the message that will be sent to any recipient that sends a message, so it should be clear that you are out of the office and the message is automated. With Exchange, an out-of-office message is labeled but with these rules, only the subject and message are shown. When sending messages to senders using rules, always ensure that it’s clear that the message is automated so that your recipients don’t think it’s a message that you physically sent.

When you click “a specific template,” a window opens asking you to point Outlook to a file that contains a message template. You created an OFT file earlier, and this is the template file that you need. Choose the file location and click “Next.”

The final Outlook window confirms your settings and asks you to create a name for the new rule. This rule name will show in your “Manage Rules & Alerts” window the next time you create a new rule or want to change a current one.

Before you finalize your rule, click “Turn on this rule” to activate it. If you don’t choose this option, you’ll have to activate it later for it to take effect and out-of-office messages to be sent. After you complete the rule configuration, click “Finish” to store it. If you activate it, the rule takes effect with the next message that you receive.