Forum Discussion
Press three times to go one step back in Outlook webmail
So using Outlook webmail, if I open an e-mail in a custom folder Future Problems, two levels down from the account root folder, go to Inbox, view an e-mail, and then press Back button on the mouse, the e-mail closes out of the reading pane and I remain in the Inbox. If I press the Back button again, the URL changes in the address bar to reflect the ID of the e-mail in Inbox that just got closed. It's not supposed to do that, is it? No. It's an annoying bug. Does Microsoft care? Where do I report it?
If I press the Back button again, for the third time, then it finally takes me back to my custom folder. I can see its ID in the address bar. If I press the... you see where this is going? This is broken as hell! If I press the Back button one more time, the ID in the address bar changes to reflect that of the e-mail in Future Problems, but it doesn't actually press on and open it. No. It just sits there.
Is this what Outlook users have to deal with every day? This would drive me crazy. It's the little things like this that add up to a dysfunctional experience. Crumbling, unresponsive, frustrating... take a pick. The devil is always in the details! I can send more your way if you promise to get it fixed.
I have written a detailed report on this, with steps on how to reproduce it and what goes wrong. Can I have your good name and address? Where do I send it?
4 Replies
Yeah, you're not alone, Outlook Web does weird stuff like this all the time. The back button behavior is super flaky, especially with nested folders. Microsoft should care, but honestly, bugs like this often fall through the cracks. You can try reporting it via the Feedback option in the Outlook Web app (look for the smiley face in the top-right corner). Or post it on the Microsoft Feedback Portal, maybe with enough upvotes they'll take notice.
It's much easier to just accept the status quo and press the button three times to go one step back, like everyone else, than to try and raise the issue with Microsoft directly.
I know this is a minor bug and will not reach their priority list soon enough. But it's one of many, and put together leaves the impression of Outlook as a really poor service. As if it was launched yesteryear and not more than 20 years ago. I honestly feel like it's an eternal Beta. With all the shifts and and changes over the years, they still are not on par with their more recent rivals. I have had my Hotmail account for more than 25 years, but I stopped using it as my primary about 21 years ago. They just can't kick the ball between the posts. Every attempt at reinventing it has failed.
Right now, their "One Outlook" idea is the latest push for reinvention, but users from all corners are pushing against this "New Outlook" and want to keep the Outlook "classic" (as Microsoft dubbed it) alive - the perfectly normal, stable and well developed desktop app. Their "One Outlook" idea is full of inconsistencies as it stands right now and it will remain so for years. Meanwhile, whenever I speak to someone about Outlook I have to explain myself which one I mean. There are at least five different versions of it right now.
Even if I found a major bug right now, like a security vulnerability, and wanted to report it, I wouldn't know how or where to report it. I would need to research that first. This Tech Community space/forum was suggested to me on Reddit, as a way of maybe getting the attention from the right people at Microsoft. I was not aware of this other portal, "Microsoft Feedback Portal". But I contacted Microsoft Support earlier today, and after two turns with chat support agents and two tickets later, I managed to get connected to the Outlook web app team (they have a separate team for Outlook and Outlook "web"). They also suggested the Microsoft Feedback Portal. But since I had already posted here, they noted the address to this post and told me they would make sure it reaches the right team. They can't open external sites like Reddit, they told me. That's understandable. At least support agents can't do that. It's a pity if software engineers can't do that either, because that's where I posted more technical details about this issue that might be useful to them, and I'm not posting it again. (I have provided the link to the support agent nonetheless.)
I will make note of Microsoft Feedback Portal for later. Apparently, the Microsoft Feedback Portal is a replacement for Microsoft UserVoice forum. I had a profile on their UserVoice forum and have sent them many suggestions and reported bugs regarding Windows, Office apps and other services. This was long before Windows 10 was released and before the idea of "Feedback Hub" app materialized. It was maybe in 2012.
I'm afraid you're right when you say that with enough upvotes they may take notice. I know this to be true. I'm just in denial, because I can't believe they are so fenced off from their user base and customers. It's unreal. I was thinking the same the other day, wondering how do they ever take notice of anything, of any issue, big or small. It's when it reaches the headlines of main stream media I think. They learn about their flaws and imperfections from mass media, if the issue is too large too ignore. When it's already damaging their public image and their stock share value. Who knows, maybe that recent Outlook outage could have been prevented if they had taken notice of that DM from unknown sender on Twitter.
The lack of ability for users and customers to reach out to the company and say, look, you have a serious problem with your product right here, and here's how you can fix it, is not uniquely a feature of Microsoft. The same applies to all the big companies that have become so big that they can ignore what the users say they want, and they can afford to lose customers over a bad update.
Enable keyboard shortcuts in Settings → Accessibility in the web version of Outlook, and then press the Esc key or customize the Back shortcut.
It's already enabled. It must be enabled by default, because I never touched these settings. It's set to "Outlook". I have changed it to "Outlook.com" (whatever the difference is!). That didn't help. What is this supposed to do? Let me customize the "Back shortcut"? What is the "Back shortcut"? All I can see is that the symptoms remain the same after this change. But I did not need to enable it, "keyboard shortcuts" were already enabled. In Settings → General → Accessibility, correct? The last option in there is "Turn off keyboard shortcuts" and that's obviously not the intended course of action.
