25 thoughts on “How to turn off Working Offline in Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2013”

  1. Hello Support 4 IT Support,

    This web page is a great explanation of how to toggle Outlook back to Online mode as the explanations on the Microsoft support page s are a complete mess! Many thanks for creating it.

    Paul D

  2. It is not working for me……. still offline, can’t get back online???????????

    I want my email through the 2016 outlook app and not the live/web email.

    How do I get back online since the above is NOT changing the “work Offline”…..

    Thanks.

  3. My Outlook (Office 365) also just stopped working properly the other day. It shows I am working offline, and the “Work offline” icon is shaded, BUT nothing happens when I click on the icon. I cant get it to change to working online.
    Any more suggestions? I didn’t make any changes to my system – this just seemed to happen by itself. Wonder if there has been a MS update that has messed it up?
    Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

    1. It doesn’t switch to ‘working online’ just becomes unshaded. My main problem it that it always defaults to offline when I open the app each time. Very annoying.

  4. Having the same issue since 5/29/17 at 7:22 a.m. Directions to turn from working offline to online are not working. I too want to open using Office 2016. HELP

  5. Same issue here
    Outlook 2016 starts Offline (every time)
    sub product and terrible support.
    Need a simple answer please, Microsoft..??

  6. I have the same problem – pressing the Work Offline button does not bring it back online! What do we do???

  7. KATHERINE THOMPSON
    SAME PROBLEM. IS THERE NO OTHER WAY TO GET OUTLOOK 2016 ON LINE? CLICKING THAT X BUTTON DOES NOTHING!!

  8. Click the Work Offline button on the Send/Receive tab. The status will change to WORKING OFFLINE. Then click the Work Offline button again to turn it off and prompt Outlook to connect.
    Click File > Options > Advanced > Send/Receive button and check When Outlook is offline> uncheck include this group in send/receive.

      1. How did you turn Outlook to show that it’s not working off line? This happen to me many years back but I forgot how to change it to online. Thanks

  9. I have the same issue. I added the ‘Work Offline’ button to the ribbon and now the button is greyed out, and does nothing when I click it. Any idea how to reconnect to Work Online? Please reach out. Thank you.

  10. It just appeared this morning on my Win 10 machine. No changes to the OS or the Office Suite. All is good via the Web interface to the same Exchange server. It seem to send (the dialog says it has competed but it is not in my sent items folder) but fails on receive with en error saying that the server is offline. This is the same server that works via the Web interface. No one else in the office is having this problem. I also had this problem a couple of months ago. It magically clear up after about 36 hours.

    Something is wrong with Outlook or Exchange. There are way too many folks complaining about this same problem for it to be non-existent,

  11. You can try and re-install Outlook and when the installer comes up click ‘Repair’ or right click the shortcut to Outlook and choose Properties. In the Target field add /safe to the end. If there are quotes add it before the end quote. Should look something like this:
    “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\outlook.exe /safe”
    It will open Outlook in safe mode and hopefully correct any issues. No promises though.
    Outlook in offline mode can indicate an issue with your internet as well so I would check that your internet connection is good before any of this.

  12. Hi, I’ve had a couple issues with some users (I work as IT support) where the Work Offline option keeps enabling by itself. Both times, the users don’t know the Work Offline button exist, so I don’t think they would enable it themselves.

    1. Same. I was actually trying to find if there’s some shortcut users are accidentally hitting to put themselves into offline mode. Of course, MS has no useful info.

  13. Don’t have a separate choice for offline – mine says “all accounts – online and offline” so I’m still stuck offline

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