Outlook is not sending Out of Office message.

[Sheila]

My company uses a POP/SMTP server and Outlook 2003. I have set up an "Out of
Office" message, but when I test it (have another employee send me an email),
the "Out of Office" message is not returned to the sender.

I have checked the box which says "Turn on this rule". Why is my "Out of
Office" message not being returned to senders?

 

[Wes from Scottsdale]

I believe you need to use Exchange for Outlook's Out of Office to work. The
Exchange server responds on your behalf when Outlook is not open.

If you don't have Exchange, you can create an auto-reply rule that
accomplishes the same thing, but Outlook will need to stay open for the rule
to run when new messages are received.

 

[Sheila]

I have created the auto-reply rule according to the directions from Microsoft
and I have my Outlook open, but the "out of office" message still will not
return. Any other ideas?

 

[VanguardLH]

My company uses a POP/SMTP server and Outlook 2003. I have set up an "Out of
Office" message, but when I test it (have another employee send me an email),
the "Out of Office" message is not returned to the sender.

I have checked the box which says "Turn on this rule". Why is my "Out of
Office" message not being returned to senders?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311107

 

[Sheila]

I have followed all these instructions, but my message is still not being
sent. I did notice that my "Out of Office" message is saved in my Outbox. I
have also tried rebooting, but to no avail.

 

[VanguardLH]

I have followed all these instructions, but my message is still not being
sent. I did notice that my "Out of Office" message is saved in my Outbox. I
have also tried rebooting, but to no avail.

Turn off the OOF option if you left it on. Delete the rule to emulate
OOF. Then recreate the rule. Now send a test e-mail from some other
account to your own e-mail account and check if the rule works to send
back a reply.

Whether using the Exchange OOF function or the rule, only one reply is
sent back per e-mail address. Just one. Why? Because if it was a real
person that sent you an e-mail then they only need to receive back a
single e-mail telling them that you are away, not a reply for every
e-mail they send you. They may send you more e-mails although they know
you are away but don't need to be reminded every time that you aren't
there. You might subscribe to newsletters or other automated delivery
mails and they don't care about you taking a vacation. Spammers might
send out a ton of their crap all using the same bogus e-mail address.
Are you going to send out hundreds of OOF replies to spam that uses the
same e-mail address? So, to test your OOF setup, you have to enable it
anew and then send just one test e-mail to get back the OOF reply. Only
one OOF reply gets sent per sender's e-mail address.

If you send a test e-mail to try to generate an OOF reply but you don't
get the OOF reply at that other account then perhaps you have spam
filtering at your end or at the receiving end that is blocking that
e-mail. I don't recall if using a rule to emulate OOF results in a copy
of the OOF reply getting put into your Sent Items folder. I never use a
rule for OOF replies. It means I have to leave the computer, router,
and cable modem powered on all the time and that there are no power
outages, that there are no network outages (i.e., my ISP has perfect
availability), that Outlook remain loaded all the time (it will lock on
getting a mail session error and you won't get further mail polls), and
that you really do want to respond to everyone that sends you an e-mail.
Instead go check with your e-mail provider if they have a vacation
response or other-named auto-responder function. It is much better to
have the auto-replies generated from the mail server than from the
client end.

 

[Sheila]

Thank you so much! I deleted everything and reentered the message. It now
works beautifully. I really appreciate you explaining various scenarios in a
language I could understand...Thanks again!

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I have created the auto-reply rule according to the directions from
Microsoft
and I have my Outlook open, but the "out of office" message still will not
return. Any other ideas?

It should get delivered exactly once per Outlook session to each unique
address.