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Outlook 2007 & 2013: set Out of Office

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Determine the type of your Account

First, you need to verify the type of account you have because only Exchange Accounts support this feature. To determine the type of account you have to follow these steps:

  1. On the Tool menu > choose Account Settings
  2. On E-mail tab check the column Type. You can check the type of account you have.

NOTE: This feature of Outlook depends on the version of Microsoft Exchange Server.

Turn on the “Automatic Replies (Out of Office)”

For Outlook 2007

  1. Click Tools >  Out Of Office Assistant
  2. Check the option **Send Out of Office auto-replies. **
  3. If you want to specify a set time bound, select the check box  Only send during this time range. Then specify the Start time, and End time
  4. Select the tab Inside My Organization and Outside My Organization as your wish.
  5. Enter the message you want to send in the space provided.
  6. Click Ok.

For Outlook 2013

  1. Click File >Info > Automatic Replies(Out of Office)
  2. If you want to specify a set time bound, select the check box  Only send during this time range. Then specify the Start time, and End time.
  3. Select the tab Inside My Organization and Outside My Organization as your wish.
  4. Enter the message you want to send in the space provided
  5. Click Ok.

Defying Rules with Automatic Replies

Defying Rules with Automatic Replies may help you to manage the mails efficiently when you are out of office. Outlook automatically manages the incoming mails and sends custom replies as defined in the Rules. Defying rules may help to copy, delete or move messages to a particular folder automatically.

Click File > Automatic Replies > Rules > Add Rules

Specify the conditions that a message must meet for the rule to be applied under the section when a message arrives that meet the following conditions.

  1. Click Advanced to specify more conditions then click Ok.
  2. Click Perform These Action, select the actions as your need.

Click Ok three times

Out of Office without Exchange Server

One can have an Automatic Reply to an Email without Microsoft Exchange Server but with the condition that you leave the computer turned on with internet connectivity so that Outlook can automatically download the Mails. This can be achieved by combining the Outlook Email Template and Outlook Rules functionality.

  1. Create a message template(New Email > type the message >save as > Outlook Template(*.oft))
  2. Manage the rules to automatically reply to new Emails.

 

(Home > Rules and Alerts >New Rule > select the reply template)

Out of Office (Automatic Replies) helps you to manage the inbox when you are not in the office and it is featured only for Exchange Server Accounts. POP/IMAP accounts can send automatic replies by combining together the effect of Outlook Templates and Outlook Rules.