Forum Discussion
"New" Outlook is not great
I was forced to switch to the new version of Outlook. I have to have it for my job so I have no choice. So many things wrong when compared to the classic version. You would think that MS would migrate all the settings, views, etc. to the new version. But they didn't.
-Event/reminder snooze options - now limited to two hours? Now I get reminders every two hours for something I need to snooze for days or weeks like I was able to before.
-Contact views - can't view my contacts in the classic table format where I can filter/sort by company name or last name, etc.
-Spell check now cleared by left mouse click instead of the usual right click like all other apps have.
-No longer can select multiple email attachments like the classic version
-Email folders cannot be sorted anymore
Again...love Outlook but this new version is not a winner. MS...please bring back all the classic options!
18 Replies
I was forced to migrate to the New Outlook when my Gmail on Outlook Classic no longer worked due to some IMAP bug which is recognized by Microsoft. I am open minded an a tech person, having designed more than 1600 applications. The conclusion: The new Outlook is not great. In fact, it feels like a giant step backward in time.
- Most of my old contacts are not recognized when I create a new email, the People address book takes a long time to load, and shows my contacts repeated up to 6 times. There is no multiple delete button nor a merge contacts feature which is now commonplace
- I am used to an ultra compact view in Outlook Classic, having to deal with 100 emails a day. I have no such feature
- It is not possible to reorder some of the folders
- Folders that I delete reappear, even those that I deleted more than a year ago
- The spacing in the signatories is much looser. I cannot get my disclaimer to be at single line spacing
- When I try to click on any attachment, it says I have to upgrade to Microsoft Premium despite this being my work account and it is a fully paid license. Yet when I right click and open, it works immediately for excel, word, pdf or any other attachment type
- Overall, the feel is far more primitive as if some high school kid designed it thinking they know better than the experienced team that built Outlook Classic
- At every level - Mail, Address Book, Calendar, the new Outlook is far less intuitive and far more basic. This is clearly a downgrade
- I am used to calling my emails whenever I want to, once I am up to date on all my current emails. Outlook New calls my emails as soon as I enter and there is no means for me to turn this off
- In Outlook Classic I used to draft and press Send and then only send the emails when I am ready. New Outlook only allows a delay but doesn't allow me to store in the Outbox until I click send and receive
- The designers if new Outlook clearly think that they know how users use Outlook, but they are more like cavemen and women who have no idea about how people use Outlook.
I am seriously for the first time since Windows was launched to bail and move to Google or Apple. If Microsoft - after their recently failings with writing of Skype at such short notice when this was mine and various partner's primary communication tool at work - doesn't improve Outlook with weekly updates to make this as powerful as Outlook Classic, it would be time for me to move on.
Microsoft Azure itself is way too expensive and already multiple clients have dropped this because there is no way to easily budget the monthly fees. AWS is far more understanding in this respect. Is Microsoft now out of touch? When can real users like me be contacted to give real life advice to fix things?
The irony is, as a software person, is that it is easy to do so. But is there a willingness to listen to the Microsoft Community. It is sad that Microsft doesn't even have a channel for direct feedback and support.
I will pass on that since I like the old version better.
You’re absolutely right. But once you start using the New Outlook, you’ll likely prefer it over the Classic version. While the Classic Outlook has many features, not all of them are truly useful. The New Outlook focuses on the essential tools that users actually need, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
I don't object to the New Outlook; I object to the lack of a conversion facility to move my "old" Outlook data to the new Outlook. Even if the New Outlook has better features, I cannot abandon many years of message history, contacts, etc. Microsoft is negligent in its failure to provide a migration facility from the "old" pst file to a "new" file which retains the accounts, contacts, folders, messages, etc. If there is such a conversion program, please let me know.
Paul_F I have been thinking about how to "migrate" PST to a server so you can view it all in New Outlook. Typically it's a manual import/export. I am hoping MS puts in a "Migrate button" in Classic or New Outlook and it configures for you. Once you move to Exchange business or Outlook.com, no PST needed then and everything sings much better. PST is not ready yet for fulltime use.Give feedback if you like! I'm doing it for some important tech issues I'm finding https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/89a8afa3-2e1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472
Transition to the New Outlook is worthless. It loses ALL accounts, settings, folders, etc. I wanted only a new program that continued to work with my existing Outlook Database (.pst) I cannot go to a new program if it forces me to lose my history and start from scratch. The user should be warned that selecting the New Outlook option in the old Outlook will delete everything!
Transitioning to the new Outlook has been the most painful and awful experience
I agree. Previous version of outlook was way better than this one.
Here is a feedback page, you can write up feedback for each issue.
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/89a8afa3-2e1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472
Hi Rockeye12,
Microsoft is rebuilding New Outlook from scratch. Based on feature prioritization and new technology for the next generation, it will not include all classic features.
I have the Business Standard subscription.
- Event Reminder: Custom dates and times for reminders are available.
- Contacts: Yes, contacts need improvements.
- Spellcheck mouse click: I recommend that you give Microsoft the feedback.
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/89a8afa3-2e1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472 - Email Folder Sorting: It is now available.
To see the complete list of Classic vs New Outlook Feature Comparison based on feature availability, upcoming, investigating, and unsupported, click here
Also, I have a video playlist to assist with your New Outlook experience.
https://www.youtube.com/@traccreations4eIf this information is helpful, mark it as the best response to assist others with the same question.
#traccreations4e-r25 4/21/2025
This is a joke. Why build a software which was so successful and the frontrunner from scratch. The new Outlook is missing some of the core features. Building something from scratch to me means rebuilding the whole platform to match every single feature, and then building up from there to something greater. The new Outlook is an inferior product. At this rate, it would be better to kill the new Product the same way that Skype was so poorly developed, because an inferior product and then was killed with so little advance notice.
Microsoft, that experience maker. Those shoehorned “experiences” that intend to dictate “how we work today”.
Apparently, Microsoft wants us to work like newbies because it thinks we're not worth much more. It should open a toy shop and leave the software market.
Why rebuild something which didn't need to be rebuilt in the first place? The new outlook is a joke; MS took away basic settings and options and made it look like a personal email platform rather than a professional version. There are likely far more important MS issues which needed to be addressed rather than the email platform which worked just fine.
100% agree.
