Forum Discussion
Introducing groups in Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android
I'm assuming that the actual Outlook Groups app will eventually go away based on the wording.
Would they just disable mail sync? Would that impact the usability of Groups in Outlook app?
Outlook on iOS and Android has been continuously adding a ton of functionality for users and enterprise features that administrators need. So, I would recommend you to take a close look at it.
I don't fully understand your comment on mail sync getting disabled. Can you clarify?
- I personally use it, but most of our users use the built-in email clients as it is what they are familiar with/comfortable with. So we have never forced them to move into the tool. I'm afraid Microsoft is making that decision for us.
I'm a big fan of the stand alone Groups app, and personally didn't see a need to shove it into Outlook. I view it as a lightweight competitor to Teams, and thus worthy of its own interface. If you wanted to communicate in Outlook, you could just subscribe and do it via email.
Brent Ellis wrote:
I personally use it, but most of our users use the built-in email clients as it is what they are familiar with/comfortable with. So we have never forced them to move into the tool. I'm afraid Microsoft is making that decision for us.
I'm a big fan of the stand alone Groups app, and personally didn't see a need to shove it into Outlook. I view it as a lightweight competitor to Teams, and thus worthy of its own interface. If you wanted to communicate in Outlook, you could just subscribe and do it via email.I agree, I liked the stand alone app. It allowed people not to have to use outlook (which is the slowest email client I have used on mobile). The problem I have always had is that groups does not allow a user to log in with multiple accounts. For now the integration into the outlook app seems to correct that. Although it is a pain to get to the groups in outlook.
We are working on making access to groups in Outlook mobile easier. Stay tuned for more updates on this.
- Hi Krish,
until outlook for iOS is able to download emails in background I cannot switch.
It is one of the top requested features since 2015 but still no news...
Thank you,
Roberto- Michael Palermiti
Microsoft
Hi there. I'm from the Outlook for iOS team.
You can enable background refresh for Outlook on iOS by following the steps here.
It's worth noting a few things to keep in mind regarding background email and calendar syncing on iOS (and Android too). Both Apple and Google control the operating systems that the Outlook apps run on and we must follow the rules as 3rd party apps.
There are some situations where the background download will be impacted:
- If you “force-quit” an app, any background refresh for the app is disabled.
- Background refresh is also disabled if you restart your device.
- Downloading an update for an app from the app store might also disable background refresh temporarily.
- If you haven't opened the app recently, iOS might disable background refresh.
I hope this helps. Please do enable background refresh in Settings if you haven't already. And if you're seeing poor sync performance, please let us know by opening an in-app support ticket by going to Settings > Help & Feedback > Contact support. Thanks!
- Hi Michael,
Background refresh was already enabled on my iPhone.
I receive the notification that new emails arrived, but when I open the outlook app it has yet to download the emails. It doesn't download them in background...
Until this is fixed/possible me and many of my customers won't switch from the stock iOS email app.
Thank you for your reply, very appreciated!
Roberto
