Going back to my example above, if Mary selects “Send a reply now” when accepting my meeting request, I see her acceptance on the Track tab, as in the screenshot below.
How to change what Outlook does with meeting responses
Meeting organizers using Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2021, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2013, Can change the way Outlook handles meeting responses. You can choose to have meeting responses bypass your inbox. Meeting replies are set to bypass your inbox by default, but you can change this behavior if you’d like.
- In Outlook, select File > Options.
Responding to Meeting Requests in Outlook – Instructions
- When you are invited to a meeting in Outlook, the invitation with the name “Meeting Request” appears in the “Inbox”. Your email folder.
- To reply to a meeting request in Outlook, single click in the “Inbox” pane to select it, and then view it in the “Reading Pane” or double-click click the meeting request to view it in its own “Meeting” window.
- Next you need to choose how you want to reply to the meeting.
- When you view the meeting response in the reading pane, the buttons appear at the top of the message
- If you see them in the Meeting window, they also appear at the top of the message, but they also appear in the Reply button group on en r Meeting tab in the Meeting window.
- Your options are Accept, Tentative, Decline, or if allowed by the meeting organizer, Propose New Appointment.
- Clicking OK tells the host that you will join the meeting. The meeting is also moved to your calendar.
- Clicking Tentative tells the meeting organizer that you tentatively plan to attend the meeting. The meeting is then moved to your calendar as if you accepted it.
- Clicking Decline informs the host that they cannot attend the meeting. The meeting is not added to your calendar if you decline it.
- If the meeting host allows it, you can also click Propose New Time, which allows you to propose an alternative time for the meeting in another dialog that opens.
This is then sent to the organizer as a new “meeting request”. You can then adjust the hours according to your availability or not. - After you click the reply to send it to the meeting organizer, you must select a specific option before you can reply to the meeting request.
- For the Accept, Tentative, and Decline options, you can select Edit Response Before Sending, which opens a Meeting Response dialog box where you can add comments to your response be able. “Send Response Now”, which simply transmits your response; or “Do not send a reply”, which accepts or declines the meeting but does not inform the meeting organizer. This is not normally recommended.
- For the Propose New Schedule option, the options are Tentative and Propose New Schedule or Reject and Propose New Schedule. You can choose a new time with either, but the response you choose will change your response to the meeting organizer and whether the meeting is added to your calendar.
- After you reply to the meeting request, it is automatically deleted from your Inbox folder.
- If you have accepted or tentatively accepted the meeting request, the meeting will automatically be added to your calendar as well.
The following video lesson titled Responding to Meeting Requests shows you how to respond to meeting requests in Outlook. This video lesson is taken from our full Outlook tutorial titled Mastering Outlook Made Easy v.2019 and 365.
Please note:
- People searching for your availability will still see all your tentative dates.
- There is no option to hide all tentative appointments in the Calendar apps on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and Outlook on the web.
- A reminder is still activated for provisional appointments.
What does the word sneaky mean?
1a : performed quietly and furtively so as not to be noticed : furtive glances exchanged furtive smiles. b: Expression of stealth: Sly looked around furtively.
When to use Accept or Accepts?