Documented presence timeouts in seven work chat apps

Read the state name and surface together. A default that users can change is different from an undocumented implementation detail, and a recent-activity icon is different from a named Away state. The table preserves those distinctions so that its numbers can be quoted without implying every client behaves identically.

Microsoft Learn says the most recently active device determines presence when someone is signed in on multiple devices. It also describes mobile Away when Teams runs in the background and mobile Offline after 24 hours of inactivity. That last number is an Offline rule, not the desktop Away delay.

The two Microsoft pages disagree in their simplified treatment of computer sleep: Learn says Offline, while the user support page groups sleep with Away triggers. We retain that discrepancy instead of selecting a universal sleep outcome. The support page also says users cannot set a duration for Available. A status-duration menu therefore does not prove that Available overrides idle detection.

Slack explicitly separates the availability dot from the text-and-emoji status message. A status message with a future expiry is not evidence that the availability dot will remain active until then. Its mobile navigation rule also makes a desktop-only timeout summary incomplete.

Google's status table distinguishes five-minute Idle from more-than-ten-minute Away. Separately, its notification guide calls someone idle after over 30 seconds of inactivity for notification routing. That shorter interval helps route notifications between devices; it is not a replacement for either public presence threshold. Mixing those documents would produce a misleading comparison.

Zoom's Away setting is documented for Windows, macOS, Linux, and the Web App. Becoming active in its desktop, mobile, or web app clears Away. A configurable default should be described as a default, rather than as a fixed rule for everyone.

Webex distinguishes desktop computer activity from mobile message activity, and its availability hierarchy places meeting states above Available. The ten-minute reference appears in the green icon's descriptive text; the reviewed article does not label it a universal automatic Away countdown. We report the actual wording's scope.

Discord documents automatic Idle and a manual Idle override but gives no precise interval. Its June 2020 update date is visible on the page still served at the check date. Current accessibility does not make that article a newly published 2026 announcement or validate a number absent from it.

Microsoft's Outlook support article says new Outlook and the business web experience use Teams information. Outlook for Mac describes calendar and Teams/Skype integration. Those are integration rules, so listing Outlook as an independent five-minute timer would add a fact the sources do not supply.

Before comparing two people, establish the Outlook version, work or school versus consumer account, and connected chat service. A calendar Busy indicator, an automatic reply, and an inactivity-derived Away state answer different questions. None of the reviewed documents defines its presence indicator as a measurement of completed work.

Cite Idle Pilot's documentation review, checked October 28, 2026, covering seven products. Retain the product, client, state name, and whether a quoted value is a default. Link the vendor page too. No original experiment or employer-account observation was conducted.