How to Auto Decline Meetings in Outlook When Out of Office

Your automatic reply tells people you are away, but meeting invites still land on your calendar and wait for an answer. Outlook can decline them for you, though only some versions of Outlook show the option. In this guide, I’ll show how to auto decline meetings in Outlook when out of office in each client, and how an admin can do it for a user who has already left.

Quick Answer: In Outlook on the web or new Outlook for Windows, go to Settings > Accounts > Automatic replies, turn replies on, tick Send replies only during a time period, then tick Automatically decline new invitations for events that occur during this period. Classic Outlook’s Automatic Replies window has no decline option, so set it in the browser.

Which Outlook Versions Can Auto Decline Meetings

• Outlook on the web (Microsoft 365 work or school accounts and Outlook.com): has all three calendar options in Automatic replies.
• New Outlook for Windows: same Settings page and the same three options.
• Classic Outlook for Windows (Outlook for Microsoft 365, 2024, 2021, 2019, 2016): File > Automatic Replies only sets the reply text and dates. There is no decline option in that window.
• Outlook for Mac and mobile: Microsoft’s guides do not show these calendar options there. Use Outlook on the web.

The decline options are stored with your mailbox in Exchange Online (they are the same settings admins change with PowerShell, covered below). So you can switch them on once in the browser and keep working in classic Outlook.

Not sure which one you have? Here is how to check your Outlook version.

Auto Decline Meetings in Outlook When Out of Office (Web and New Outlook)

The steps are the same in Outlook on the web and new Outlook for Windows.

1. Click the Settings gear at the top right.
2. Go to Accounts > Automatic replies.
3. Turn on the Turn on automatic replies toggle.
4. Tick Send replies only during a time period and set the start and end date and time. The calendar options only appear once a time period is set.
5. Tick the calendar options you need (explained below).
6. Type your reply message. For work accounts, decide whether to tick Send replies outside your organization.
7. Click Save.

If your Outlook on the web still has the older look, the path is Settings > Account > Automatic replies, then Send automatic replies and Send replies only during this time period, with the same three options. Click OK to save. Need the reply text as well? My free out-of-office message generator gives you three ready replies with your dates filled in, plus the steps to switch them on.

What the Three Calendar Options Do

Block my calendar for this period adds an event for the whole time period that shows you as away. Anyone checking your free/busy in the Scheduling Assistant sees it.

Automatically decline new invitations for events that occur during this period is the actual auto decline. Any new meeting request that falls inside your dates gets declined, and the organizer gets the decline. Invites for meetings after you return are not touched.

Decline and cancel my meetings during this period deals with meetings that are already on your calendar. Outlook lists the events in your away window and lets you choose which to decline or cancel. By default it selects every meeting that has attendees. Untick anything you want to keep (a recurring team call you will join from your phone, for example).

Read that list carefully before you save. For meetings you organized, “cancel” means the meeting is cancelled for every attendee and they all get the cancellation. If someone else should run the meeting while you are away, forward the meeting invite to them first.

Classic Outlook for Windows: What You Can Do

Classic Outlook has two features that look related. Neither of them is the out of office decline.

File > Automatic Replies sends your away message. You can set a date range and separate messages for inside and outside your organization. It does not touch meeting invites.

File > Options > Calendar > Auto Accept/Decline has three checkboxes:

• Automatically accept meeting requests and remove canceled meetings
• Automatically decline meeting requests that conflict with an existing appointment or meeting
• Automatically decline recurring meeting requests

The second one declines any request that overlaps something already on your calendar. If you put an appointment on your calendar covering your leave, new invites in that time conflict with it. This option is not tied to your away dates. It keeps declining conflicts after you come back, until you untick it. Ask a colleague to send you a test invite before you rely on it. Microsoft lists it for Outlook for Microsoft 365, 2024 and 2021. The Microsoft help page has the details.

For most people the browser route is simpler: set it once in Outlook on the web and go back to classic Outlook.

Set It for a User as an Admin (Exchange Online PowerShell)

When a user is already on leave and forgot to set anything, an Exchange Online admin can set the automatic reply and the decline options for them with Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration. You need the ExchangeOnlineManagement module (Exchange Online PowerShell V3) and an account with Exchange admin rights.

Connect-ExchangeOnline -UserPrincipalName admin@yourdomain.com

Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -Identity user@yourdomain.com `
  -AutoReplyState Scheduled `
  -StartTime "<start date and time>" -EndTime "<end date and time>" `
  -InternalMessage "I am out of office and will reply when I return." `
  -AutoDeclineFutureRequestsWhenOOF $true `
  -DeclineMeetingMessage "I am out of office during this meeting."

Enter the dates in the short date format of the PC you run the command on, in quotes if you add a time. Here is what each decline parameter does:

• AutoDeclineFutureRequestsWhenOOF $true declines new requests that fall in the scheduled period. Same as the second checkbox.
• DeclineEventsForScheduledOOF $true allows existing events in the period to be declined. Add DeclineAllEventsForScheduledOOF $true to decline all of them, or EventsToDeleteIDs for specific ones (you cannot use both).
• DeclineMeetingMessage sets the text the organizer sees in the decline.
• CreateOOFEvent $true with OOFEventSubject adds the away event to the calendar, like the “Block my calendar” checkbox.

All of these need -AutoReplyState Scheduled with a start and end time. They do nothing with Enabled.

Be careful with DeclineAllEventsForScheduledOOF on a manager’s mailbox. Every meeting they organized in that window gets cancelled for all attendees, and someone has to send those invites again when they return.

To check what is set on a mailbox:

Get-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -Identity user@yourdomain.com | Format-List
Disconnect-ExchangeOnline -Confirm:$false

Exchange Server (On-Premises) Is Different

On Exchange Server 2016, 2019 and Subscription Edition, the decline parameters above exist in the Exchange Management Shell, but Microsoft’s documentation says they are “functional only in the cloud-based service”. So on-premises you can still schedule the automatic reply with AutoReplyState, StartTime and EndTime, but do not expect the auto decline parameters to work.

Microsoft’s user guide does say the three calendar options apply to Outlook on the web for Exchange Server 2016 and 2019. The two documents do not agree, so test it on one mailbox before you tell users to rely on it. If it does not work, the classic Outlook conflict option above is the fallback.

When Auto Decline Does Not Work

The calendar options are missing. Tick Send replies only during a time period first. Without dates, the checkboxes do not show. If you are in classic Outlook, you are looking at the wrong window: use Outlook on the web.

Some invites still arrived. The option only declines meetings that occur inside your away dates. An invite you received during your leave for a meeting next month stays in your Inbox, which is normally what you want.

A meeting I organized got cancelled for everyone. That is how “Decline and cancel my meetings” works for your own meetings. If you only wanted to step out of one, send a new invite. Our guide on how to cancel an Outlook meeting without sending a notification helps when you need to clean up quietly.

I came back early and want my meetings back. Turning off automatic replies stops new declines, but decline and cancel messages already sent stay sent. Ask the organizers to resend, or accept the invites again from your Inbox if they are still there. Classic Outlook removes declined meetings from the calendar, so the Inbox copy is usually the quickest way back.

If you are not sure who invited you to a forwarded meeting, you can see who forwarded a meeting in Outlook.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the organizer know the meeting was declined automatically?

The organizer gets a normal decline response. If an admin set DeclineMeetingMessage, that text is in it. Your automatic reply goes out separately to people who email you.

Can I auto decline only some meetings while I am away?

Not for new invites. The option declines every new request inside your dates. For meetings already on your calendar, untick the ones you want to keep in the “Decline and cancel my meetings” list before you save.

Before your next leave, set the dates and options in Outlook on the web a day early and open your calendar to check what got declined. That is easier to fix while you are still at your desk.