How to Respond to a Meeting Invitation in Outlook

When you receive a meeting invitation in Microsoft Outlook, you can respond to the meeting to accept, decline, or indicate that you are tentatively attending.

Meeting invitations will come to your inbox like an email message and will appear as events in your calendar that you need to respond to. Meeting invitations can be opened like emails and calendar events and contain a subject line, information on the people who sent and received the meeting invitation, and any further information on the meeting in the text area below. In addition to responding to the meeting invitation, you can also respond with an email to the meeting organizer or other recipients of the invitation.

Responding to a Meeting Invitation

1. Open the meeting invitation by double-clicking on the invitation in Mail or on the appointment in Calendar.
2. From the ribbon, choose one of the following responses:
   • Accept: You can attend; Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar.
   • Tentative: You may be able to attend; Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar as tentative.
   • Decline: You cannot attend; Outlook will not put the meeting on your calendar.
   • Propose New Time: You can propose a new time to the meeting organizer; if you tentatively accept and propose a new time, Outlook will put the meeting on your calendar.
   • Respond: Send an email message to the meeting organizer; Outlook puts the meeting on your calendar as tentative and notes that you still need to respond.
3. Once you select a response, choose one of the options from the dropdown menu:
   • Edit the Response before Sending: You can write a message to the meeting organizer to send along with your meeting response (accepted, tentatively accepted, declined).
   • Send the Response Now: Outlook will automatically send an email to the meeting organizer with your meeting response (accepted, tentatively accepted, declined).
   • Do not Send a Response: Outlook will record your meeting response in your calendar but will not send an email with your response to the meeting organizer.
   • Propose a New Time: If you chose "Propose New Time" as a meeting response, you can use the scheduling window to suggest to the organizer a new meeting time.
4. If you chose an option that opens a message window, make any changes to the message and click [Send].