How to fix Microsoft Teams showing 'Away' or 'Offline' status when you are actively working

Summary

This guide helps you troubleshoot and resolve: How to fix Microsoft Teams showing 'Away' or 'Offline' status when you are actively working. Follow the steps below to fix the issue.

Common Causes

When Microsoft Teams shows the wrong presence status, it is usually caused by a stuck activity signal, an out-of-date desktop client, or a misconfigured calendar integration. Teams relies on your keyboard, mouse, calendar, and sign-in activity to decide whether you appear as Available, Busy, Away, or Appear offline. If any of those signals drop out, your status can get stuck on Away or Offline even while you are actively working at your computer.

This guide walks you through the most common causes and the steps to restore accurate presence in the Teams desktop app and the web version.

Quick Fix Steps

Try these steps first. Most presence issues are resolved within a few minutes.

1. Move your mouse or press a key to refresh your activity signal, then wait 30 seconds for the status to update.
2. Click your profile picture in the top-right of Teams and confirm your status is not manually set to Away, Busy, or Appear offline.
3. Quit Teams completely and reopen it. On Windows, right-click the Teams icon in the system tray and choose Quit. On macOS, use Cmd + Q.
4. If the issue persists, sign out and sign back in. Click your profile picture, choose Sign out, then sign in again with your work or school account.

Detailed Instructions

Check for a manually set status

Teams lets you override your automatic status. If someone (or you) set it manually, it will stay that way regardless of activity.

1. Click your profile picture in the top-right corner.
2. Look at the current status under your name.
3. If it shows Away, Busy, Do not disturb, or Appear offline, click it and choose Available.
4. Click the status duration menu and choose Reset status to clear any scheduled status messages.

Update the Teams desktop app

Outdated clients can fail to report presence correctly. Microsoft releases updates frequently.

1. Click the three dots (More) menu next to your profile picture.
2. Choose Check for updates.
3. If an update is available, Teams will download and install it. Restart the app when prompted.

On macOS, you can also update Teams through the App Store if it was installed from there.

Clear the Teams desktop cache

A corrupted cache can cause Teams to stop syncing presence data with the Microsoft 365 service.

On Windows:

1. Quit Teams fully (right-click the system tray icon and choose Quit).
2. Press Win + R, type %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams, and press Enter.
3. Open the following folders and delete their contents (not the folders themselves):
   • Cache
   • blob_storage
   • databases
   • GPUCache
   • IndexedDB
   • Local Storage
   • tmp
4. Restart Teams and sign back in.

On macOS:

1. Quit Teams with Cmd + Q.
2. In Finder, press Cmd + Shift + G and go to ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams.
3. Delete the contents of the same folders listed above.
4. Restart Teams and sign back in.

Verify your Outlook calendar connection

Teams uses your Outlook calendar to switch you to Busy or In a meeting automatically. If the calendar sync is broken, your status may stay on Away even during meetings.

1. Click the three dots (More) menu and choose Settings.
2. Select Privacy from the left-hand menu.
3. Confirm Manage calendar settings shows your work or school account.
4. If the account is missing or incorrect, click Add account and sign in.

Check Teams service health

Sometimes the issue is on Microsoft's side. If presence is not working for multiple people in your organisation, the service may be degraded.

1. Go to admin.microsoft.com (administrator sign-in required).
2. Navigate to Health > Service health.
3. Look for any advisories under Microsoft Teams.

Home and small business users without admin access can check the public Microsoft 365 Service Status page.

Disable conflicting presence add-ins

Third-party tools, such as some CRM diallers, time trackers, or custom Teams apps, can interfere with presence reporting.

1. Click More > Manage apps.
2. Review the list of installed apps.
3. Temporarily remove or disable any app that controls status or activity reporting.
4. Restart Teams and test your presence.

Troubleshooting

Status still stuck after a restart

If your status remains on Away or Offline after the steps above, the issue may be with your sign-in token. Try the following:

1. Sign out of Teams on all devices, including mobile.
2. Wait five minutes.
3. Sign back in on your primary device first, then on any others.

Presence is correct in the web app but not the desktop app

This usually points to a corrupt desktop client or cache. Reinstall Teams using the New Teams installer from microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-teams/download-app, then sign in and test again.

Status changes correctly for a few minutes, then reverts to Away

Teams marks you as Away after five minutes of inactivity by default. If your computer is locking, your screen saver is starting, or your input devices are going to sleep, Teams will treat you as inactive. Adjust your power settings:

• Windows: Go to Settings > System > Power & battery and extend the screen and sleep timers.
• macOS: Go to System Settings > Lock Screen and increase the idle delay.

Mobile Teams app shows a different status

Each device reports its own activity. If your phone is in your pocket, it may report Away even while your desktop shows Available. To stop this, open the Teams mobile app, tap your profile picture, and set the status to Appear offline on that device only.

You appear offline to everyone, not just one person

This is almost always a service-side issue. Wait a few minutes, then check the Microsoft 365 service health page. If the problem continues for more than an hour, contact your IT support team and include the time the issue started and your account email address.

Still Having Issues?