Introduction
Email Moderation in Exchange Online ensures messages that need human review don’t slip through. Today’s workflow, however, can be constraining and confusing: To approve or reject messages moderators must use Outlook clients that support voting buttons (not all of them do, e.g. Outlook Mobile), and they may receive multiple approval requests when a message is split or forked.
To address these concerns, we're pleased to announce we're now rolling out support for two updates: moderation approval across all Outlook clients, and approval message consolidation. With these updates moderators will experience greater moderation approval flexibility and can act faster, with less noise.
What’s new
Approve or reject from any Outlook client
For moderation approval messages, we’re moving from using Outlook's voting buttons feature to Actionable Messages adaptive cards, which put the Approve | Reject buttons directly in the message body. Unlike voting buttons, Actionable Messages adaptive cards work across all Outlook clients – Windows, Mac, web, and mobile – so moderators can now approve or reject from whichever client and device works best for them.
Fewer approval messages
When a moderated message goes to a very large Distribution List (DL) or group, to reduce latency Exchange Online may split it into multiple copies (aka bifurcation) – each copy can trigger its own approval request. The same can happen when a message is forked by transport or policy, creating duplicate approval requests for the same content. We’ve streamlined the flow so moderators will now typically see one approval request per moderated message, even when it’s forked or processed along multiple paths. If a message truly requires multiple approvals, each path still must be approved to release the message to all recipients.
How these updates help your organization
- Faster, more flexible approvals: Moderators can act from their preferred device – no need to switch clients.
- Consistent experience: Same UI and actions across Windows, Mac, web, and mobile.
- Less noise: One approval request per message in most cases, reducing moderation notification fatigue while keeping all delivery paths correct.
When these will be available
Actionable Messages adaptive cards for moderation approvals will roll out starting late February 2026 and should finish by early April 2026 (for Worldwide and GCC environments). Actionable Messages isn't yet supported in GCC High or DoD environments so the moderation approval experience will continue to use the legacy voting buttons method in those environments for the foreseeable future.
The rollout of approval message consolidation will also occur in the same February to April timeframe, across all environments (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, and DoD).
What admins should know
- The Actionable Messages feature must be enabled for email in your tenant to take advantage of the new moderation approval experience across all Outlook clients. If Actionable Messages has been disabled (it's enabled by default), you can enable it via PowerShell:
Set-OrganizationConfig -SmtpActionableMessagesEnabled $true
Set-OrganizationConfig -ConnectorsActionableMessagesEnabled $true
- The Actionable Messages feature is only supported in Microsoft 365 and not on-premises, so in Exchange hybrid organizations on-prem moderators will not see the approval buttons rendered inline. To ease the transition to the Actionable Messages we'll support both the legacy voting buttons and adaptive cards experiences until July 31, 2026. After that, only the new Actionable Messages adaptive cards method will be supported, and moderators will thereafter have to have their mailboxes hosted in Microsoft 365.
- During the dual-mode period (end of July), moderators may see approval messages rendered in a variety of ways: with legacy voting buttons only, with adaptive card inline buttons only, or both. All of them will be supported and work until end of July. After that, approval via voting buttons will be deprecated and only the Actionable Messages adaptive card approval buttons will be supported and rendered.
Learn more
- Manage message approval in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn
- Bifurcation and its technicalities with implications | Microsoft Learn
- Set-OrganizationConfig (ExchangePowerShell) | Microsoft Learn
FAQs
Q: I see both the voting buttons and the new inline buttons in approval messages. Which should I use to approve the message?
A: Either one will work.
Q: What if my organization uses custom transport rules that cause message forking?
A: In forked scenarios, you may still see more than one approval request – each path must be approved to release the message to all intended recipients. This preserves correctness for all delivery paths.
Microsoft 365 Messaging Team
