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You can send automatic (Out of Office) replies from Outlook whenever you want to let people who send you email know that you won’t be responding to their messages right away.

There are two different ways to set up automatic replies. The method you choose depends on the type of email account you have in Outlook.

 

You can set up automatic replies for when you're out of the office and specify an end date so that the replies will stop automatically when you return, or you can manually turn off automatic replies.

Set up automatic replies when you're out of the office

  1. At the bottom left corner of the of the navigation pane, select MailMail icon

  2. On the Tools tab, select Automatic Replies.

    Automatic Replies
     

  3. Select Send automatic replies for account "(your account)".

    Automatic Replies Options

  4. Under Reply once to each sender within my organization, enter your automatic reply.

  5. To set the start and end dates, select the Send replies during this time period checkbox, and enter the start and end dates and times.

    Note: When you check this box and set start and end dates and times, your out of office replies will turn off automatically when the end date and time occurs.

  6. To set options for replying to people outside your organization (if it is enabled by your Exchange administrator), select Send replies outside my organization, then select Send only to my Contacts or Send to all external senders, and under Reply once to senders outside my organization, enter your automatic reply.

  7. Select OK.

Turn off automatic replies

  1. At the bottom left corner of the of the navigation pane, select MailMail icon

  2. On the Tools tab, select Automatic Replies.

    Automatic Replies
     

  3. Clear the Send automatic replies for account "(your account)" checkbox.

    Deselect Automatic Replies

The New Outlook for Mac does not currently support rules for automatic replies for these account types.

  1. In the Outlook menu bar choose Tools > Accounts.

  2. In the Accounts box, in the left pane, click the account.

  3. Above the Account Description on the right, the account type is listed.

    Note: The Default Account information displays by default.

You can set up automatic replies for when you're out of the office and specify an end date so that the replies will stop automatically when you return, or you can manually turn off automatic replies.

Set up automatic replies when you're out of the office

  1. At the bottom-left corner of the navigation pane, select Mail.

  2. On the Tools tab, select Out of Office.

    On the Tools tab, click Out of Office.

  3. In Autoreply Settings, select the appropriate account on the left and check Send automatic replies for account " x " (where "x" is the specific account).

  4. Under Reply once to each sender with, enter your automatic reply.

  5. To set the start and end dates, check Only send replies during this time period and enter the start and end dates and times.

    Note: When you set start and end dates and times, your out of office replies turn off automatically when the end date and time occurs.

  6. To set options for replying to people outside your organization (if it is enabled by your Exchange administrator), check Also send replies to senders outside my organization, select Send to external senders, and under Reply once to each external sender, enter your automatic reply.

  7. Select Ok.

Turn off automatic replies

  1. At the bottom-left corner of the navigation pane, select Mail.

  2. On the Tools tab, select Out of the Office.

    On the Tools tab, click Out of Office.

  3. Uncheck Send automatic replies for account "x" (where "x" is the account you want to turn off replies).
     

You can set up a mail rule in Outlook to automatically reply to new email messages. You can set up mail rules for all account types in Outlook, including Exchange, POP, and IMAP accounts.

Because email rules are run by Outlook and not the mail server, your computer must be turned on and Outlook must be open for automatic reply messages to be sent.

Create an email rule to automatically reply to incoming messages

  1. At the bottom-left corner of the navigation pane, select Mail.

  2. On the Organize tab, select Rules Edit Rules.

  3. In the left pane of Rules, select the account you want to create rules for, such as Exhange, IMAP, or POP.

    Click an account type

    Tip: If you don't know what type of account you have, see I'm not sure what type of account I have and return to step 4 in this section.

  4. In the Rules box, choose Add a rule.

  5. In the Rule name box, enter a name for the rule, such as "Vacation Reply".

    Create a rule

  6. Under Do the following, select Change status, and select Reply.

  7. Click Reply Text, type the automated reply that you want Outlook to send, andselect Ok.

    Reply text

  8. In the Rules box, you see the Vacation Reply you created.

    Vacation reply rule

Note: Outlook sends automatic replies based on the rule you created until you manually turn off the email rule.

Manually turn off an email rule

  1. At the bottom-left corner of the navigation pane, select Mail.

  2. On the Organize tab, select Rules Edit Rules.

  3. In the Rules box, double-click the rule you want to turn off.

    Vacation reply rule

  4. Clear the Enabled check box and select OK.

  1. In the Outlook menu bar, select Tools > Accounts.

  2. In the Accounts box in the left pane, select the account.

  3. Above the Account Description on the right, the account type is listed.

  4. To return to the Rules box, select Show All and choose Rules.

    Under Email, click Rules.

Note: To configure a rule, got to Step 4 in  View this if you have Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, or other POP or IMAP account.

See also 

Create a rule in Outlook for Mac

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