What Does Tentative Mean in Outlook? A Maybe, on Invites and Calendars
Tentative in a meeting means maybe: you might attend. Where Tentative shows up in Outlook and Teams, why unanswered invites land on your calendar as Tentative, how it differs from Busy, and what Microsoft's own calendar code says it is.
Tentative in a meeting means maybe, in Outlook and in Teams. When you answer a meeting invite with Tentative, you tell the organizer you might attend, and the meeting stays on your calendar marked as tentatively booked. As a calendar status, Tentative sits between Free and Busy: people checking your schedule see a striped block, so they know you might be taken, but it does not block the time the way Busy does. Tentative does not change your status dot in Outlook or Teams; only a Busy event turns you red, In a meeting. Microsoft's own code puts it in the same place: in the Microsoft Graph calendar API we queried on 27 October 2026, tentative is value 1, between free (0) and busy (2), and the Teams calendar draws a tentative event with diagonal stripes.
The same word appears in Microsoft Teams, which uses your Outlook calendar, with the same meaning. If your calendar also drives a Slack status, see Slack Outlook Calendar integration.
Where you see Tentative in Outlook
| Where | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your reply to an invite | You may attend. The organizer sees Tentative next to your name in the meeting's tracking list. |
| An invite you have not answered yet | Outlook placed it on your calendar as Tentative until you reply |
| Show as on your own event | You chose Tentative, so the slot looks possibly booked to others |
| Scheduling Assistant | A striped block: that person might be busy then |
| Outlook and Teams status dot | No change; only Busy events turn the dot red |
Tentative as a reply to a meeting invite
In an invite, pick Tentative from the response buttons. Outlook asks whether to send the response now, edit it with a note, or not send a response. The meeting stays on your calendar, marked Tentative, and the organizer's tracking list counts you as a maybe. From the Tentative button you can also pick Propose new time, which sends the organizer a different slot while keeping your maybe.
Microsoft stores this reply as tentativelyAccepted, which is why some calendar apps and reply emails say "tentatively accepted". The Graph API's tentativelyAccept action takes the same three things the button offers: a comment, whether to send the response, and a proposed new time.
Organizers read it as "planning to come if nothing better lands". If you know you will attend, Accept is clearer; if you know you will not, Decline frees the organizer to plan without you. Teams calendar invites have the same three options, with RSVP labels Accept, Tentative and Decline.
Why unanswered invites show as Tentative
When an invite arrives, Exchange puts it on your calendar right away as Tentative, so the time does not look free while you decide. This is why a meeting you never answered still shows up, striped, in your day. It is controlled by the mailbox setting AddNewRequestsTentatively, which is on by default. An Exchange admin can check it in Exchange Online PowerShell:
Get-CalendarProcessing -Identity alex@contoso.com | Format-List AddNewRequestsTentativelyWhen you answer, the entry changes to Busy (Accept), stays Tentative, or disappears (Decline).
Tentative vs Busy
| Tentative | Busy | |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar look | Striped bar | Solid bar |
| What others read | Might be booked | Booked |
| Status dot in Outlook and Teams | No change | In a meeting, red |
| Double-booking | Common; people often schedule over it | People schedule around it |
Outlook's other Show as values are Free, Working elsewhere and Out of office; what each does to your status dot is in Outlook status colors meaning.
What Microsoft's code says about Tentative (checked 27 October 2026)
We checked Tentative in Microsoft's own code. A short Python script read two sources: the live Microsoft Graph v1.0 metadata at graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata, which defines every calendar field Outlook and Teams share, and the calendar code of the Teams web client as served on 26 October 2026. The full output:
Microsoft Graph v1.0 $metadata fetched 2026-10-27 01:04 UTC
freeBusyStatus (an event's Show as): unknown=-1, free=0, tentative=1, busy=2, oof=3, workingElsewhere=4
responseType (your answer to an invite): none=0, organizer=1, tentativelyAccepted=2, accepted=3, declined=4, notResponded=5
tentativelyAccept action parameters: ['ProposedNewTime', 'SendResponse', 'Comment']
Teams web client calendar code (files served 2026-10-26)
Free event bar: outline only
Working elsewhere event bar: dots
Tentative event bar: diagonal stripes
Busy event bar: solid fill
Out of office event bar: crosshatchThree things follow. Tentative is its own Show as value, ranked between Free and Busy, so a scheduling tool can tell "might be taken" from "taken". Your reply and the slot's look are separate fields: responseType holds what you answered, and freeBusyStatus holds how the time shows, which is why an invite you never answered (notResponded) can still sit on your calendar as Tentative. In the Teams calendar, the bar at the edge of each event shows the status: stripes for Tentative, dots for Working elsewhere and a solid fill for Busy.
How to change a Tentative meeting to Accepted
- Open the meeting on your calendar.
- Select Accept, or Respond > Accept in newer Outlook versions.
- Choose whether to send the response. The bar turns solid, and Teams shows you In a meeting when it starts.
To mark your own event Tentative, open it and set Show as to Tentative. Outlook on the web and the new Outlook for Windows put Show as in the event's toolbar or its ... menu.
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