Forum Discussion
How can I know if I am using Outlook.com or Office 365 Outlook?
How can I know if I am using Outlook.com or Office 365 Outlook?
I thought that Office 365 was only online and accessed by a browser. I have a stand-alone Outlook product but the options are only either Office 365 Outlook or Outlook.com, with emphasis on the ".com". So which one should I pick?
In the past, all one had to do is click on help -> about and you could see the name of the product and the version, but this is not the case today.
When I use a Microsoft tool called "Power Automate" there are clearly two separate options I have to pick from where one is implementing Outlook.com and the other is implementing Office 365 Outlook. Apparently, I have to know which one I am using.
I want to know if the people that named these two programs were drinking or on drugs when they decided to give two different programs the same name. How many times in the last 20-plus years have I been confused by people using the word "outlook" when referring to their email? Whoever they were, they should be fired immediately.
You should go to Office 365 Outlook if you are M365 user, Outlook.com is a free web-based e-mail service provided by Microsoft
Like the previous person who posted the long explanation of what the differences are, you too have completely missed the point. I have Microsoft 365 with Outlook and I've been using Outlook since they came out with it somewhere in the late '90s if I recall. I started with PCS in the '80s with the Dos prompt. I have an idea what the meanings are and again you missed my point. If you have to explain the difference every single time you use the word Outlook, then the stupidity of the entire problem becomes evident. And again, I wonder if you were one of the people who named two different programs with the same name.
Hi, wm-thompson.
These are two different versions of Outlook. Here are some key differences between them:
- Outlook.com is a free, personal email service that you can access via a web browser. It has a simple and modern interface, and it integrates with other Microsoft services like OneDrive and Skype. You can use Outlook.com with any email address, such as @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com. You can also add other accounts, such as Gmail, Yahoo, or iCloud, to Outlook.com and manage them from one place.
- Office 365 Outlook is part of the Office 365 suite of applications, which is a subscription-based service that offers more advanced features and capabilities than Outlook.com. Office 365 Outlook includes the desktop version of Outlook, which you can install on your PC or Mac, and the web version, which you can access online. You can use Office 365 Outlook with your Microsoft 365 account for business or personal use, or with other accounts, such as Outlook.com. Office 365 Outlook has more options for customization, security, and collaboration, such as scheduling and task management, rich formatting, mailbox rules, shared mailboxes, public folders, Microsoft 365 Groups, and more.
To know which one you are using, you can check the following:
- If you have an active subscription to Microsoft 365, you are likely using Office 365 Outlook. You can verify this by going to File > Office Account > Product Information in the desktop version of Outlook, or by signing in to your Microsoft 365 portal and clicking on the Outlook app.
- If you don’t have a subscription to Microsoft 365, but you have a stand-alone Outlook product, you are probably using the desktop version of Outlook with your Outlook.com account or another account. You can check this by going to File > Account Settings > Account Settings in the desktop version of Outlook, and looking at the type of your email account.
- If you don’t have any Outlook product installed on your computer, but you access your email through a web browser, you are most likely using Outlook.com. You can confirm this by looking at the URL of the web page, which should be something like https://outlook.live.com or https://outlook.office.com/owa.
Depending on your needs and preferences, you can choose to use either Outlook.com or Office 365 Outlook, or both. For example, if you want a simple and free email service that works well with other Microsoft services, you can use Outlook.com. If you want more advanced features and capabilities for email and calendar, and you are willing to pay for a subscription, you can use Office 365 Outlook. If you want to use both, you can add your Outlook.com account to your Office 365 Outlook, or vice versa, and sync your emails and calendars across devices.
I hope this helps!
~Jesse
You completely missed the point, which makes me wonder if you weren't one of those people who decided to name two different programs Outlook. Your explanations are basically worthless. Or are you suggesting that every time somebody uses the word Outlook that they include the definitions that you posted here so that people understand which one you're talking about? Because that's essentially what you're saying. And that is the center of the problem if you need an explanation like that. In other words you have not a clue what I wrote.
