Out of Office Message

It's good practice to create an out-of-office message for your work email when taking time off. Even if you only plan to be out for a day, your colleagues will appreciate your polite, concise, and professional explanation of why you cannot respond right away.

What an out-of-office message should contain

Each out-of-office email should contain the following information, allowing the sender to solve the problem even during your absence.

Date of your time off/return — The date in the message is really vital. It is the only way for the sender to know that the message is up to date and to find out when he can contact you again.
Contact a representative — If the sender's issue can not wait until your return from vacation, contacting your colleague will usually save the situation. So don't forget to state the name, email and, if possible, the phone number of the colleague who represents you.

The basic automatic reply may look like this:

Thank you for your email!

I am out of the office from April 28 until April 30 and will return on May 3. I will reply to your email as soon as possible upon returning to the office.

In urgent cases, please contact my colleague (name) at (email).

How to set up an automatic out-of-office message in Microsoft Outlook

Do you have your out-of-office message written? Great! Now it is time to set it up. If you do not know how to do it, use our detailed instructions how to set up your automatic out-of-office replies in Outlook:

Open Microsoft Outlook and click on "File" in the top left corner of the screen.
Select "Automatic Replies (Out of Office)" from the list of options.
In the "Automatic Replies" window, select "Send automatic replies."
Set a start and end date for your out-of-office message. You can also choose to send replies to people inside your organization, outside your organization, or both.
Type your message in the text box.
If you want to set up different messages for people inside and outside your organization, click on the "Outside My Organization" tab and repeat step 5.
Once you've finished crafting your message(s), click "OK" to save and activate your out-of-office message(s).