Skip to main content

Kutools for Office — One Suite. Five Tools. Get More Done.

Outlook: Show calendar as busy, free, tentative, and out of office

Author Kelly Last modified

As an Exchange user in Microsoft Outlook, you can set permission for others to view the Free/Busy information in your calendar. Therefore, other users can pick up free time for group schedules, such as meetings. Apart from granting permission to view Free/Busy information, you need to mark your appointments as busy, free, or others. This article will guide you to show appointments in calendars as busy, free, tentative, or out of office in Microsoft Outlook.

The following steps will guide you to show your appointments as busy, free, tentative, or out of office.

Step 1: Create a new appointment:

  1. In Outlook 2010 and 2013, click "New Items" > "Appointment" on the "Home" tab;
  2. In Outlook 2007, click "File" > "New" > "Appointment".

Step 2: In the Appointment window, click the "Show As:" box in the "Options" group on the "Appointment" tab.

There are five options in the drop-down list of "Show As:" box: Free, Tentative, Busy, Out of Office, and Working Elsewhere. You can select one of them based on your needs.

the drop-down list of the Show As box

Step 3: Compose your appointment, and click the "Save & Close" button.

Then these appointments will be marked and shown as Free, Busy, Tentative, or Out of Office, both in your Outlook and in other Exchange users’ Outlook who share your calendar information. See screenshot:

result

Best Office Productivity Tools

Breaking News: Kutools for Outlook Launches Free Version!

Experience the all-new Kutools for Outlook with 100+ incredible features! Click to download now!

🤖 Kutools AI : Uses advanced AI technology to handle emails effortlessly, including replying, summarizing, optimizing, extending, translating, and composing emails.

📧 Email Automation: Auto Reply (Available for POP and IMAP)  /  Schedule Send Emails  /  Auto CC/BCC by Rules When Sending Email  /  Auto Forward (Advanced Rules)   /  Auto Add Greeting   /  Automatically Split Multi-Recipient Emails into Individual Messages ...

📨 Email Management: Recall Emails  /  Block Scam Emails by Subjects and Others  /  Delete Duplicate Emails  /  Advanced Search  /  Consolidate Folders ...

📁 Attachments Pro: Batch Save  /  Batch Detach  /  Batch Compress  /  Auto Save   /  Auto Detach  /  Auto Compress ...

🌟 Interface Magic: 😊More Pretty and Cool Emojis   /  Remind you when important emails come  /  Minimize Outlook Instead of Closing ...

👍 One-click Wonders: Reply All with Attachments  /   Anti-Phishing Emails  /  🕘Show Sender's Time Zone ...

👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏻 Contacts & Calendar: Batch Add Contacts From Selected Emails  /  Split a Contact Group to Individual Groups  /  Remove Birthday Reminders ...

Use Kutools in your preferred language – supports English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, and 40+ others!

Instantly unlock Kutools for Outlook with a single click. Don't wait, download now and boost your efficiency!

kutools for outlook features1 kutools for outlook features2

🚀 One-Click Download — Get All Office Add-ins

Strongly Recommended: Kutools for Office (5-in-1)

One click to download five installers at once — Kutools for Excel, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Office Tab Pro. Click to download now!

  • ✅ One-click convenience: Download all five setup packages in a single action.
  • 🚀 Ready for any Office task: Install the add-ins you need, when you need them.
  • 🧰 Included: Kutools for Excel / Kutools for Outlook / Kutools for Word / Office Tab Pro / Kutools for PowerPoint