How to fix Microsoft Teams showing 'Away' status automatically after a few minutes of inactivity

Summary

This guide helps you troubleshoot and resolve: How to fix Microsoft Teams showing 'Away' status automatically after a few minutes of inactivity. Follow the steps below to fix the issue.

Common Causes

If Microsoft Teams keeps flipping your status to Away after only a few minutes of inactivity, it is usually caused by a combination of Teams presence settings and your computer's power or sleep configuration. This guide walks you through adjusting both so your status accurately reflects when you are actively working at your desk.

Quick Fix Steps

For most users, the following three adjustments resolve the issue:

1. In Teams, change your status duration from 5 minutes to 30 minutes (or longer) under presence settings.
2. Disable your computer's sleep and screen timeout settings so the system never registers as idle.
3. Make sure Teams is running on a visible desktop window, not minimised to the system tray only.

Detailed Instructions

Adjust Teams Presence Settings

Teams allows you to control how long it waits before marking you as Away. The default is often set to 5 minutes, which is too aggressive for many users.

1. Open Microsoft Teams and click the three dots (…) next to your profile picture in the top right corner.
2. Select Settings.
3. Go to the General tab.
4. Scroll down to the My status section.
5. Change When I am inactive for this long, show me as Away from After 5 minutes of inactivity to After 30 minutes of inactivity (or your preferred duration).
6. Close the Settings window. Your change is saved automatically.

Adjust Windows Power and Sleep Settings

Even with Teams presence settings adjusted, Windows can still put your computer to sleep or turn off the display, which causes Teams to mark you as Away. Follow the steps below for Windows 10 or Windows 11.

1. Open the Start menu and search for Power & sleep settings.
2. Under Screen, set both On battery power, turn off after and When plugged in, turn off after to Never (or a much longer duration).
3. Under Sleep, set both On battery power, PC goes to sleep after and When plugged in, PC goes to sleep after to Never.
4. Click Additional power settings on the right-hand side.
5. Next to your selected plan, click Change plan settings.
6. Click Change advanced power settings.
7. Expand USB settings > USB selective suspend setting and set it to Disabled. This prevents USB devices from being suspended, which can also trigger an idle state.
8. Click Apply, then OK.

Make Sure Teams Stays Active

Teams only detects activity on the device where it is installed. If you have Teams open in a browser tab or a minimised window that is not actively rendering, your status may still change.

• Use the Teams desktop app rather than the browser version where possible. The desktop app reports activity more reliably.
• Keep the Teams window visible on your screen, even if it is in the background behind another application.
• Avoid closing Teams to the system tray. The app must remain running in the foreground or background to report your status correctly.
• If you use multiple monitors, make sure Teams is open on the primary display.

Troubleshooting

Status still changes to Away after adjusting settings

If your status continues to flip to Away after completing the steps above, work through the following checks:

1. Sign out and back in to Teams. Click your profile picture, select Sign out, then sign back in. This forces Teams to reload your presence configuration.
2. Clear the Teams cache. First, fully close Teams by right-clicking the Teams icon in the system tray and selecting Quit, then check Task Manager to ensure no Teams processes are running. Press Windows + R, type %appdata%\Microsoft\Teams, and press Enter. Delete the contents of the following folders: Cache, blob_storage, databases, GPUCache, IndexedDB, Local Storage, and tmp. Note that this will sign you out of Teams and clear some local data. Restart Teams and sign back in.
3. Check for Teams updates. Click the three dots (…) next to your profile picture and select Check for updates. Install any available updates and restart the app.
4. Disable conflicting presence plugins. If you use third-party tools that interact with Teams presence (such as status synchronisers or calendar integrations), disable them temporarily to see if they are interfering.
5. Check your organisation's Teams policy. Some businesses apply Teams policies through Microsoft 365 admin centre that override individual user settings. If you are part of a managed organisation, your IT administrator may need to adjust the presence policy.

Status shows Away even when actively typing

This usually indicates that Teams is not receiving activity signals from your operating system. Try the following:

• Make sure your mouse and keyboard drivers are up to date through Device Manager.
• If you are using a KVM switch or remote desktop session, Teams may not detect input correctly. Use Teams on your local machine instead.
• Disable any battery-saving or "focus" modes that may be suppressing background activity reporting.

If you have completed all the steps in this guide and your Teams status is still not behaving as expected, please contact our support team for further assistance.

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