How to set automatic replies on a user's mailbox in Office 365

Authored by: Support.com Tech Pro Team

1. Introduction

This will help the You to set automatic replies on a user's mailbox in Office 365

2. Resolution

This Guide has three methods that you can use to set automatic "out of office" replies on a user's mailbox in Microsoft Office 365 on the customer's pc

3. Method 1

1. Sign in to the Office 365 portal.

2. Locate Users > Active users (or Groups > Shared mailboxes if you set this on a shared mailbox).

3. Select a user who has a Microsoft Exchange mailbox.

4. On the flyout menu on the right, locate Mail settings > Automatic replies (if it's a shared mailbox, just locate Automatic replies on the flyout)

4. Method 2

1. Sign in to the Office 365 admin portal by using administrator credentials.

2. Expand Admin Centers, and then select Exchange.

3. Click the picture in the upper-right corner, select Another User, and select the user mailbox you want to change.

4. On the left side, select Options, click Organize E-mail, and then click Automatic replies

5. Method 3

Run the following cmdlet in Exchange Online PowerShell:

Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration

6. Method 4

When you click File in Outlook, you should see a screen that looks something like this:

If you see a button that says Automatic Replies, see Send automatic out-of-office replies from Outlook. Otherwise, use the following steps to create a template to reply to messages and set up Outlook to reply to every message you receive.

Create an out-of-office template

1. In Outlook, create a new email message.
2. Enter a subject and message body for your out-of-office template.

1. Select File > Save As.
2. Give your template a name and in the Save as type drop-down, select Outlook Template (*.oft).
3. You can change the location for your template, but you can also pick the default location, which is usually c:\users\username\appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates. Click Save.

You can create a new template every time you're out of the office or reuse an existing template. Now you're ready to use that template to create your Out of Office rule.

Create an out-of-office rule

1. Select the File > Manage Rules & Alerts.
2. In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, on the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.

1. Under Start from a blank rule, click Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next.
2. To reply to every email message you receive, leave the Step 1 and Step 2 boxes unchanged and click Next again. Select Yes when Outlook asks you if you want to apply this rule to all messages.
3. Under What do you want to do with the message, in Step 1: Select action(s), select reply using a specific template.
4. Under Step 2: Edit the rule description, click the underlined text for a specific template.
5. In the Look In the box at the top of the Select a Reply Template box, select User Templates in File System.
6. Select the template you created above, and then select Open and Next.
7. You can add any necessary exceptions, then select Next.
8. Give your rule a name, for example, Out of Office.
9. By default, Turn on this rule is checked. If you're ready to turn on your out-of-office reply now, select Finish. Otherwise, uncheck this box. You can turn the rule on at a later date 

To have the rule send automatic replies to your email messages while you're gone, you must leave Outlook running