Microsoft Teams
Setting Your Teams Status and Notifications
This guide shows you how to manage your Teams presence status and configure notifications so you are reachable when needed but not constantly interrupted.
Time needed
10 minutes
Platform
Microsoft 365
Guide steps
3 clear sections
Before you begin
You are signed in to Teams.
Follow along
Step-by-step guide
Set your availability status
- Instruction 1: Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams.
- Instruction 2: Click your current status (Available, Busy, etc.) to see the options.
- Instruction 3: Available: you are online and ready to respond.
- Instruction 4: Busy: you are active but prefer not to be interrupted.
- Instruction 5: Do not disturb: notifications are silenced — use this during meetings or focused work.
- Instruction 6: Be right back / Away: you have stepped away briefly.
- Instruction 7: Offline: appears offline to others (you can still use Teams).
- Instruction 8: Click the status you want. You can also set a duration, after which it reverts to automatic.
Action map
Set your availability status
- 01
Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of Teams.
- 02
Click your current status (Available, Busy, etc.) to see the options.
- 03
Available: you are online and ready to respond.
Visual guide
Use this visual action map alongside the written instructions above.
Open Microsoft Teams help & learning for Setting Your Teams Status and NotificationsSet a status message
- Instruction 1: Click your profile picture, then click Set status message.
- Instruction 2: Type a short message that others will see when they hover over your name (e.g. 'In meetings until 3 PM — email for urgent queries').
- Instruction 3: Set how long the message should show (e.g. 'Clear after 1 hour', 'Today', or 'Never').
- Instruction 4: Click Done.
Manage notification settings
- Instruction 1: Click the three-dot menu (…) next to your profile picture, then click Settings (or click Settings directly from the gear icon).
- Instruction 2: Click Notifications.
- Instruction 3: For each category (mentions, messages, calls, meetings), choose how you want to be notified: Banner and email, Banner only, Only show in feed, or Off.
- Instruction 4: To reduce interruptions during focused work: set 'Chat messages' to 'Only show in feed' and keep @mentions as banners.
- Instruction 5: You can also customise notifications per channel: right-click a channel name in Teams, click Channel notifications, and choose your preference.
Quick fixes
Troubleshooting
My status shows as Away even though I am actively using Teams
Teams sets your status to Away when your computer is idle for a few minutes. If you are working but not actively using the mouse/keyboard, Teams may show you as Away. This is automatic. You can manually override it by setting your status to Available.
I am receiving too many email notifications from Teams
Go to Settings > Notifications and set Email frequency to 'Off' or 'Once a day'. Teams activity notifications are separate from the real-time banners — reducing email does not affect in-app notifications.
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