Teams Status for Lunch: Be Right Back Plus a Message

For lunch in Microsoft Teams, set your status to Be right back with a duration of 1 hour, and add a status message like "Out to lunch, back at 1:30" that clears after 1 hour. Click your profile picture, choose your current status, then Duration to pick the status and when it resets. Then choose Set status message from the same menu for the text. Both end by themselves, so you do not come back to a status that says you are still at lunch at 4 p.m. Typing /brb in the Teams search box also sets Be right back, without a timer.

If you use Slack at work too, the lunch steps for Slack are in Slack status for lunch.

How to set a lunch status in Teams

Step 1, the status (the dot):

• Click your profile picture at the top right of Teams.
• Click your current status, then Duration.
• Under Status, choose Be right back.
• Under Reset status after, choose 1 hour, or Custom with the time you will be back.
• Click Done.

Step 2, the message (the words):

• Click your profile picture, then Set status message.
• Type your lunch line, with the time you are back.
• Tick Show when people message me, so anyone who opens a chat with you sees it above the message box.
• Under Clear status message after, choose 1 hour.
• Click Done.

On the Teams phone app, tap your profile picture, then your status, and the same Duration and Set status message options are there.

Microsoft's support page describes Be right back as the status for when "you want to say you're temporarily away. It's never set automatically." That is the point of using it: people know you chose it, and will be back soon. When the duration ends, Teams goes back to setting your status from your activity, your calendar and your computer.

Which Teams status to use at lunch

Option	What others see	When it ends
Be right back with a duration	Yellow clock, "Be right back"	When the duration ends
Appear away	Yellow clock, "Away"	When you change it, or at the end of a duration
Status message only	Your text; the dot follows your activity	When the clear-after time ends
Outlook lunch event shown as Busy	Red dot, "In a meeting"	When the event ends
Do nothing	Away after about 5 minutes without input	When you touch the computer again

• • Be right back fits lunch best. It says you left on purpose and will return.
• • Appear away looks the same as being idle. Use it if you are eating at your desk and do not want to be pinged.
• • Doing nothing works too. Teams sets you Away after about 5 minutes without keyboard or mouse input, or at once when you lock the computer; see how long before Teams shows away. The difference is that nobody knows when you will be back.
• • Do not disturb is the wrong choice. It mutes notifications and shows a red dot, which reads as "busy", not "at lunch".

What the Teams code says about lunch statuses

We read the Teams web client that teams.microsoft.com serves before sign-in, on 8 October 2026, with a short Python script that downloads the main bundle and prints the status menu settings. This is its output:

fetched 2026-10-08 01:56 UTC async-entry-73e520e1bcb61c2e.js
Duration presets in the status menu: HalfHour,OneHour,TwoHours,Today,ThisWeek + Custom
Keys with no menu text: Never, FourHours
Status         badge others see
Available      available
Busy           busy
DoNotDisturb   do-not-disturb
BeRightBack    away
Away           away
Offline        offline
menu icon colour class: busy fvi85wt | dnd fvi85wt | be right back f14k8a89 | appear away f14k8a89

Three things follow from it:

• • The Duration presets are 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, Today and This week. A FourHours key exists but has no menu text, so there is no 4-hour or 90-minute choice. For a long lunch, pick Custom and type the time you will be back.
• • Be right back draws the same badge as Away. Both map to away, and in the status menu both icons use the same colour class. A coworker who only glances at the dot sees the same yellow clock for a lunch break as for an idle laptop. The words "Be right back" show on hover and on your profile card, which is why the status message with your return time matters.
• • Doing nothing turns you Away after 5 minutes. The same bundle sets appIdleTimeoutInMs to 300,000 ms, so about 5 minutes without input marks you Away.

Should you block lunch in your Outlook calendar?

A lunch event in Outlook protects the time from meeting invites, but it changes your Teams status. With Show as: Busy, Teams shows "In a meeting" in red for the whole hour, which is misleading. With Show as: Free, the event blocks nothing in scheduling assistants.

A common setup: a recurring lunch event shown as Busy so nobody books it, plus Be right back and a status message on the days you leave your desk. How Busy and In a meeting differ is in Teams Busy vs In a meeting.

Teams lunch status messages to copy

Plain, with the return time:

• • Out to lunch, back at 1:30
• • At lunch until 1 p.m. Urgent? Call my mobile.
• • Lunch break, replies after 2
• • Quick lunch at my desk, slow replies for 30 minutes
• • Lunch with the team, back at 1:15

A bit lighter:

• • Refueling. Back at 1:30 with better answers.
• • Out to lunch. Back when the sandwich is gone.
• • Lunch walk. Reachable on my phone.

Put the time you are back in the first few words; that is the part people read. Teams allows up to 280 characters, and you can @mention the colleague who covers for you. More lines are in funny Teams status messages.

Can you set an automatic lunch status every day?

Not in Teams itself. A status message and a duration last for one lunch, and Teams has no daily repeat for either. The options:

• • Outlook calendar. A recurring lunch event changes your Teams status every day, but only to "In a meeting" (Busy) or not at all (Free).
• • Power Automate. A scheduled flow can set a status message through Microsoft Graph, if your admin allows it.
• • Every day by hand. Two clicks with Duration, and it resets itself.

For longer absences, use the out-of-office scheduler, which also sends an Outlook auto-reply: how to set an away message in Teams.

FAQ

Does Teams set me to Away when I go to lunch? Yes. The Teams client marks you Away after 300,000 ms, about 5 minutes, without keyboard or mouse input, and at once when you lock the computer. That is the same yellow clock as Be right back, without the words.

Can I type a command to set Be right back? Microsoft lists /brb as a Teams command, typed in the search box at the top. It has no timer, so set your status back to Available when you return.