Slack Out of Office: Status, Auto-Replies, and Messages That Work

Slack has no out-of-office auto-reply in the email sense. Nothing answers your DMs while you are gone. What Slack gives you instead is three pieces you combine: a status that tells people you are away, paused notifications so the pings do not follow you, and Workflow Builder if you really want an automatic reply in specific channels.

This page sets up all three, with message examples you can paste. It takes about five minutes before you leave.

Set an out-of-office status

The status is what coworkers see next to your name everywhere in Slack. It is the single most useful OOO signal, and it clears itself if you set an expiry.

• Click your profile photo, then Update your status.
• Type your message and pick an emoji. The 🌴 is the convention people scan for.
• Set Remove status after to your return date. This is the step people
skip and then show "on vacation" for a week after they are back.
• In the same menu, choose Pause notifications for the same period.

One thing the status does not do: it does not change your presence dot. Your dot goes gray on its own once you stop using Slack, on the timers covered in how long does Slack stay active. The status text and the dot are separate systems.

Out-of-office message examples

Short beats complete. A status field truncates in most views, so put the return date and the escalation path first:

• • OOO until Mon Jan 12 · urgent: @maria
• • Vacation, back Aug 18. Slower replies until then.
• • Parental leave until March. Ping #team-platform for anything.
• • Conference this week, checking Slack evenings only.
• • Out sick today. Tomorrow's standup: @jun covers.

More variants, filterable by situation, are in the status ideas library. For the DM auto-reply you cannot have, the closest honest substitute is a pinned line in your team channel:

• • I am out until the 12th. @maria owns incidents, @jun owns reviews. I will
not read DMs until I am back.

Schedule the status in advance

You do not need to remember on your last day. Slack can start a status later:

Update your status, type the message.

Click the Remove status after dropdown, choose Custom.

Set both the start and end. The status turns on and off on its own.

If your working pattern is the thing you want to signal, recurring quiet hours beat a one-off status. That setup is in how to schedule a Slack status.

Pause notifications properly

The status stops questions. This stops the phone buzzing on a beach:

Profile photo, then Pause notifications, then Custom.

Pick the full range of your leave, not just today.

Leave urgent override on if you want named people to break through.

DMs from anyone else wait silently.

Do Not Disturb does not mark you away and does not tell anyone anything. Pair it with the status or people will keep typing into the void.

Auto-replies with Workflow Builder

Workflow Builder can post an automatic message, with limits: it triggers in channels you configure, not on DMs, and it needs a paid plan.

Open Tools, then Workflow Builder, then Create workflow.

Trigger: a person joins the channel, a reaction, or a schedule.

Action: send a message with your OOO text and the escalation contact.

It fits a support channel or a team inbox channel. It does not fit personal DMs, and no third-party app fixes that cleanly either, because Slack does not expose an on-DM-received trigger to apps acting as you.

Multiple workspaces

Status and notification pause apply per workspace. Set them in each one, or use the desktop app's workspace switcher and repeat the steps. There is no global OOO toggle across workspaces on any plan.

Coming back

Two minutes on your first morning:

Clear the status if you did not set an expiry.

Turn notifications back on.

Your presence dot turns green the moment you touch Slack. If it stays

gray while you work, that is the idle timer, explained in why Slack shows you away while working.

The reverse problem also exists. If you want your dot green from 9:00 on your first day back without babysitting the app, that is what Slack Green does: it holds your presence on a schedule you set, and drops you to away outside it. Some people use it for the OOO itself, scheduling their dot to show away all week regardless of whether they peek at Slack. The full picture of what controls the dot is in how to keep Slack active.

Frequently asked questions

Does Slack have a real out-of-office auto-reply? No. Status plus paused notifications is the supported combination. Workflow Builder covers channels. Nothing auto-replies to DMs.

How do I set out of office in Slack for one afternoon? Same status flow with a shorter expiry. Back at 3pm with a 3pm expiry answers most questions before they are asked.

Will people see my OOO status before they message me? In DMs, yes, it shows under your name in the header and next to it in the sidebar. In big channels people often miss it, which is why the pinned channel message exists.

Does out of office hide my online status? No. If you open Slack from the beach, your dot goes green and undercuts the status. Either stay out of the app, or appear offline, or schedule your presence to stay away.

The short version

Set a status with an emoji, a return date, and an escalation contact. Give it an expiry. Pause notifications for the whole leave. Add a Workflow Builder reply only for channels that need it, and accept that DMs get no auto-reply. Five minutes, and Slack stops being the thing you think about on holiday.