Out of Office Message Generator

An out of office reply has one reader with one question: should I wait for this person, or should I go and ask someone else? Everything in a good message serves that question, and everything else is decoration.

Three pieces of information do the work:

1. 1

   That you are away

   You do not have to say why, and a broad reason such as annual leave is as much detail as anyone needs.
2. 2

   The date you are back

   Written as an actual date rather than "next week". If you return on the fourth but will not clear your inbox until the fifth, name the fifth.
3. 3

   Who to contact instead

   With their email. If nobody is covering, say that plainly so the sender stops waiting.

Four sentences is usually the whole message. The most common mistake is not being too short but being too vague, and the second most common is promising to check email when you have no intention of doing so.

Eight examples covering the situations people actually search for. Replace the bracketed parts, or use the generator above to get three lengths written around your own dates.

Both take about a minute, and both let you set an end date so you do not leave the reply running for a week after you are back.

1. 1

   Gmail

   Settings, then See all settings, then scroll to Vacation responder at the bottom of the General tab. Set the first and last day, paste your message, and save.
2. 2

   Outlook desktop

   File, then Automatic Replies, then choose your date range. Outlook lets you write one message for colleagues and a different one for people outside the company, which is worth doing.
3. 3

   Outlook on the web

   Settings, then Mail, then Automatic replies, and the same date range and external message options appear.
4. 4

   Slack or Teams

   Set your status and an expiry as well. People often message you there first and never reach the inbox that would have replied.

Turn the reply on before you leave rather than from the airport, and set the end date one day after your return if you want a quiet morning to catch up.

Auto-replies go to everyone who emails you, including recruiters, vendors, and complete strangers who found your address on a website. That is a wider audience than most people picture when they write one, and it is the reason for the short list of things to omit.

One more: do not name your backup contact without asking them. Being volunteered by an auto-reply is a small but genuine irritation, and it happens constantly.

A departure auto-reply is a different document, and it needs one thing the others do not: a clear statement that you are not coming back. Say that you no longer work at the company, give the date you left, and name the person who has taken over, so nobody keeps emailing an address nobody is reading.

If that is where you are, the letter comes first. Our two weeks notice letter generator will draft the notice, and if you want something longer that covers your reasons and your thanks, the resignation letter generator handles that. And if the reason you are setting this particular auto-reply is that you have no idea what comes next, our free career quiz maps your strengths against real occupations in about ten minutes.