{"id":985,"date":"2026-04-23T10:39:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/setting-an-out-of-office-on-behalf-of-someone-else\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:47:09","slug":"setting-an-out-of-office-on-behalf-of-someone-else-microsoft-365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/setting-an-out-of-office-on-behalf-of-someone-else-microsoft-365\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting an Out of Office on Behalf of Someone Else (Microsoft 365)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br>Managing automatic replies when a team member is unavailable<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>When Would You Need to Do This?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several situations where you might need to set an automatic out-of-office reply on someone else&#8217;s mailbox: they are off sick and did not have time to set one, they have left the company, they are on long-term leave, or they have simply forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an admin, you can do this from the Microsoft 365 admin centre without needing to know their password.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How to Set an Out of Office<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 1: <\/strong><strong>Open the Exchange admin centre<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sign in to <a href=\"https:\/\/admin.microsoft.com\">admin.microsoft.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the left menu, under Admin centres, click Exchange.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This opens the Exchange admin centre where you manage all email-related settings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 2: <\/strong><strong>Find the mailbox<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the Exchange admin centre, go to Recipients &gt; Mailboxes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Search for the person&#8217;s name and click on it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 3: <\/strong><strong>Set the automatic reply<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Click on the Others tab (or Manage mail flow settings depending on your version).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Find Automatic replies and click Manage.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Toggle automatic replies to On.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Type the message you want people to receive. Keep it simple and helpful.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You can set a start and end date if the absence is temporary.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Choose whether to send replies to people outside your organisation as well.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Click Save.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"banner-tip\"><strong>\ud83d\udc49 Tip: For leavers, set the automatic reply to run indefinitely and include who to contact instead. After a few months, when emails to the old address have tailed off, you can forward the mailbox to someone else and remove the auto-reply.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Doing This Through Outlook (Alternative Method)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have full access to someone&#8217;s mailbox (for example, through delegation), you can also set their out-of-office directly in Outlook. Open their mailbox, go to File &gt; Automatic Replies, and fill in the message. However, the admin centre method above is generally easier and does not require you to open their mailbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Managing automatic replies when a team member is unavailable When Would You Need to Do This? There are several situations where you might need to set an automatic out-of-office reply on someone else&#8217;s mailbox: they are off sick and did not have time to set one, they have left the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}