Step by step guides

  1. In Outlook select to Tools | Out of Office Assistant...
  2. Select Send Out of Office auto-replies

  3. If you want the message to be active for a specific period, for example, whilst you are holiday to and from specific dates, tick the box next to Only send during this time range: then enter start and end dates and times for your Out of Office message.

    This image displays the out of office assistant window
  4. Enter the text of your automatic Out of Office message in the text area below.
  5. By default, this message will be sent to anyone who sends you an email while you are out of the office. However, you can choose to:
    • send a different messages to internal colleagues than that sent to external senders
    • or send your Out of Office message to internal users only.
  6. To send a different message to external senders:
    • Click on the tab "Outside My Organisation"
    • Tick the box next to Auto-reply to people outside my organisation.
    • Choose whether the message should only go to those external users who are in your Outlook Contacts list.
    • Edit the text of the message
  7. If you only want to send your message to internal users and not to any external senders, un-tick the box next to Auto-reply to people outside my organisation. 
  8. When you are satisfied that you have set the correct options in the Out of Office Assistant, click OK.