The steps below are going to show you how to make and enable an out of office reply in the Microsoft Office 2013 version of Outlook. How to Create and Enable an Out of Office Reply in Outlook 2013 (Guide with Pictures) It’s a little complicated to set up an auto reply in Outlook and there are several places where you can customize some settings, which we discuss further in the next section. Our article continues below with additional information and pictures for these steps. Click Look in, click User Templates in File System, then select the template you created earlier and click Open.Select the Reply using a specific template option, then click A specific template.Click Apply rule on messages I receive, then click Next.Click the Home tab, click the Rules button, then click Manage Rules and Alerts.Type a name for the template into the File Name field, then click Save as type, choose Outlook Template, then click Save.Type your out of office message into the text box body of the email.Outlook distribution lists can be a great option if you often need to email the same large group of people and don’t want to manually enter each individual address when doing so. Most email providers will also have an out of office reply that you can configure through their Web portal, which might be a better option, depending upon your circumstances. This includes email addresses that are hosted by email providers like Gmail, Yahoo,, or one of many other similar providers. The steps below will show you how to create an out of office reply in Outlook 2013 if you have an email account that is not part of an Exchange server. An out of office reply is something that will be sent as soon as an email message hits your inbox in Outlook 2013, and the content of the out of office reply can include whatever information you might wish to convey. It’s important to know how to set an out of office reply in Outlook 2013 if you have contacts that might email you, and they need to know that you might not receive the message for a while.