Handout to Deal With Out of Office Assistant Not Turning Off Issue

Anuraag Singh | Modified: October 5, 2024 | General Exchange Issue | 6 Minutes Reading

Overview of Out of Office Assistant

Outlook has an inbuilt option embedded within it i.e. Out of Office Assistant (OOA). If the user has to leave the Office for a long time, then they can inform the people (who are sending emails) that they are on leave or away.

When this option is enabled from the user’s account, the people sending them the mail get to know that the receiver is on leave.

Problem Statement

Sometimes when users come back from leave, they try to disable the Out of Office Assistant option, but the task fails. Hence, the problem occurs in which Out of Office Assistant is not turning off and Auto-reply keeps sending from Outlook.

However, the normal way to disable this option is by going to File tab >> Automatic Replies >> Do not send automatic replies >> OK (For Outlook 2013 or 2010).

However, in some situations, this approach fails and hence, has trouble in turning off the ‘Out of Office Assistant’ option.

Solution to Resolve the Problem of Malfunctioning Out of office Assistant

To get rid of this problem, you will have to turn off the OOA option via different applications. Therefore, troubleshoot the problem, by choosing any one technique out of the four below-mentioned methods:

Depending on the scenario the Auto reply can be turned off at either the user level or at the admin level. First, let’s discuss the methods that admins can apply.

Admin Options to Disable Out-of-Office Assistant

There are three distinct admin side

Method 1

Go to the Microsoft 365 portal.

Expand Users > Select Active Users. (If you don’t see this option click on View All on the left pane)

Choose any user with a Microsoft Exchange mailbox.

On the right menu pane select Mail settings > Automatic replies.

Uncheck the box and hit Save Changes.

Method 2 Using EAC

In the left pane of your Microsoft 365 admin portal hit the Expand Admin Centers tab and pick Exchange.

This takes you to the EAC. There you need to expand the Recipients section and open Mailboxes

In the Manage Mailboxes screen, click on a user to open the flyout menu on the right, and go to Others > and click on Manage automatic replies.

Change the switch to the Off position and Save.

Method 3 Using PowerShell

Launch a PowerShell Instance and type the following (one by one):

Import-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement
Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipal Name <AdminUPN> ShowBanner: $false 
Get-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration Identity <UserID>
Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration Identity <UserID> AutoReplyState Disabled
PS
Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm: $false

User Level Actions to Turn off Automated Replies

If you have set the Automated Reply recently then when you log in to the Outlook Web (M365 edition) you will see an “Automated Reply is on” alert at the top right corner.

In the same alert, there is an off-switch use it and resolve your problem.

If you don’t see this pop up no need to worry just follow these steps:

Click on Settings Gear.
Open the Mail tab and Go to the Automatic Replies Section.
Toggle the Automatic Replies slider to the Off position.
Hit the Save button in the bottom right corner.

Alternative Technique 1: Using Legacy Outlook Web Application

If the user has right to access mailboxes on the Outlook web application (OWA), then they can disable the feature using the OWA account. Therefore, below are the alternatives to disable the feature from different versions of OWA.

From OWA 2003
Take the cursor on the left-hand side of the OWA window, go to the Options panel, and then disable OOA from it.
From OWA 2007
Move your cursor towards the right-hand side of the OWA 2007 window and turn off the OOA option from there.
From OWA 2010
To disable the option, go to Option >> Organize E-mails and then disable the Automatic replies by selecting it.
From OWA 2013
Click on the Gear icon of OWA 2013 and next to your name select the Set automatic replies option and disable it from there.

Technique 2: Using Disabled Items

If the above approach does not resolve your problem, then examine that the Microsoft Exchange Add-ins list is not set up as disabled items. However, if list items are set to disabled, then enable them to resolve the problem.

Technique 3: Managing Rules & Alerts

In this technique examine and verify that rules are not configured in such a way that they automatically send replies to incoming mail. The following points give you the knowledge for opening the Rules setting window:

In Outlook 2002/XP and earlier versions: Tools >> Rules Wizard
In Outlook 2003 and 2007: Tools >> Rules and Alert
In Outlook 2010/2013 and 2016: File >> Section Info >> Manage Rules and Alerts

Technique 4: Using MFCMAPI

The last approach to disable the OOA option is by using the MFCMAPI tool, which is hosted on CodePlex (an Open Source Community) from Microsoft. Go through the following steps to troubleshoot your problem:

Close Outlook from your system and start MFCMAPI.exe
Go to Session >> Logon and Display Table
Select your Outlook profile and then click OK
Now you will be able to view a list of configured emails stored within your account
From the bottom of the window pane, search for the PR_OOF_STATE property
Take a look at the Value column of the above property and you’ll find it True. Now to disable the feature, double-click on the PR_OOF_STATE property
Press OK to terminate the current window
Log off your session & again open Outlook

Observational Verdict

From the above-discussed measures, the user can conclude with the fact that one of the techniques will definitely troubleshoot the problem. The user just has to go through each technique (one by one) and then they will be able to get rid of this problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can’t I see the Out of Office Setting for my account?

This is quite common if you have multiple email accounts set up inside the Outlook client. Auto-reply (formally Out of Office) is only available for emails directly serviced by Microsoft (i.e. Outlook and Hotmail).

Why does my classic Outlook client still send out replies even after turning off the out-of-office setting?
Classic Outlook has a feature to set up rules that can reply to a mail with a pre-set template if specific conditions are met. You may have set up such a rule in the past. To remove it

Go to File then select Manage Rules & Alerts.
Inside the Rules and Alerts dialog box, select the E-mail Rules tab, and pick the one you believe is responsible for auto reply.
Click on Delete and confirm by hitting OK.