Out-of-Office Message Template for Excel and Google Sheets

An out-of-office message (absence auto-reply) tells senders you are unavailable, on holiday, sick leave, or travelling. It sets expectations, cuts follow-up mail, and looks professional. An out-of-office template saves time: reuse proven text for Outlook, Gmail, or Microsoft 365 instead of rewriting each absence.

The Ordio out-of-office message template is an Excel workbook: enter dates, reason, and cover contact, copy the generated text, and paste it into your mail client. In a few minutes you have a consistent reply for customers, colleagues, and partners. With Ordio absence management you plan leave digitally; for formal requests, use the vacation request template. The auto-reply complements email; it does not replace HR approval workflows.

Regular absences benefit from a short, factual message, senders know whom to contact and when you return. Without it, clients may assume silence means neglect.

Download the free out-of-office message template and use it immediately in Outlook or other systems.

Further reading: Leave of absence explained.

An Outlook out-of-office template supplies the text, you paste it into Outlook’s automatic replies.

Outlook desktop (Windows/Mac): Go to File → Automatic Replies, turn on "Send automatic replies", set start and end dates, and enter your message. You can use different text for people inside and outside your organisation.

Outlook on the web (Microsoft 365): Open settings (gear) → Mail → Automatic replies, enable the switch, choose the period and audience.

Copy the text from the Ordio Excel file into the reply box. Activate on your last working day before leave, not so early that you miss mail that still needs a personal reply.

For teams using digital leave: Ordio absences shows who is away in scheduling; the email auto-reply informs external contacts.

A professional out-of-office message includes: greeting, thanks for the email, absence dates, cover contact (name and reachability), and a polite sign-off. Keep it factual, about 40-80 words, no personal medical detail, no emojis in formal contexts.

For email addresses in the body, write "(at)" instead of @ to reduce scraping. The Ordio template lists all fields; cover details can also live in your employee files for HR consistency.

For external recipients (customers, vendors): use formal, neutral wording: "Dear Sir or Madam" or "Dear [Name]" and "Kind regards". Avoid slang and inside jokes.

For internal recipients (colleagues): you may use a friendlier tone: "Hi team", "Best": depending on company culture. Both versions should state dates and cover contact clearly.

Outlook and Microsoft 365 allow separate internal and external replies. External gets the polished version; internal can be shorter. The Ordio template has space for both.

For international contacts, add an English "Out of office" variant if you receive mail in multiple languages.

Tips: Activate on the last working day before leave; check spelling and year in dates; keep text short; name a specific cover person; use (at) for email addresses in the body.

Mistakes: Oversharing health or location; emojis in client-facing replies; forgetting to set an end date; no cover contact; replies so long that mobile clients truncate them.

Enable internal auto-reply too: colleagues then see cover details without guessing.

English-only reply? Useful if you regularly get international mail; many clients allow separate internal and external languages.

Weak and strong out-of-office lines

Annual leave. Short and neutral. Give the return date and one cover contact.

Thank you for your email. I'm on leave until Friday 24 October and won't be checking messages. For urgent questions please contact Priya Shah at priya.shah@example.co.uk. Kind regards, Sam

Conference or business trip. You can say you have limited access, but only promise what you will really do: "I'm at a trade fair this week and will reply in the evenings."

Leaving the company. Say that you have left, give the new contact, and agree with IT how long the mailbox stays open. Don't set up forwarding to a private address: the mailbox holds company and customer data.

Before you switch it on

• Test it by sending yourself an email from a personal account, so you see what external senders get.
• Set separate internal and external replies if your mail system allows it. Internal messages can be more informal and mention the project handover.
• Tell your cover person you have named them, and give them access to shared folders before you go.
• In the US, the GDPR does not apply, but keep medical reasons out anyway: under the ADA, medical information employers obtain has to be kept confidential (29 CFR 1630.14).

For managers

Agree a standard wording for the team, so customers get the same tone from everyone. Keep reasons out of shared calendars too: "Out of office" is enough, whether the person is on holiday, ill or on parental leave.

Internal version

For colleagues you can be more direct: "Off until Monday. The supplier invoices are in the shared folder under October, and Priya has the login for the booking system." Say where the work is, not just who covers it. That one sentence often saves your cover person half an hour of searching. Switch it off on your first morning back.