Designed to be fast - The Outlook on the web user experience gets simpler and more powerful
Published Sep 04 2018 10:00 AM 279K Views
Microsoft

Edit 2/8/19:

We encountered some issues with Files which prevented it from being released. We expect it to be coming soon.

 

 

Starting next week, if you are a Targeted Release customer who wants to try the early version of the new Outlook on the web, simply click on the “Try the new Outlook” toggle on the top right corner of your inbox. When you click the toggle, you’ll see all new Outlook on the web modules for Mail, Calendar, and People. Opt-in and out as often as you want.

 

Toggle blog.png 

Find the toggle on the top right of your inbox

 

Let’s look at some of the new features you can try when you opt in to the early version of Outlook on the web.

 

Search – No time to search? Outlook anticipates what you’ll need based on recent conversations and people with whom you work the most.

 

Search.png Updated search for Mail, Calendar, and People

 

Files (Files is coming soon) – Trying to find a file in your inbox can be a time-consuming exercise, to help you with that we have added a Files module that will show you all the files that you received or sent in your inbox.

Pro tip: Use Favorites to make sure you always find files from important people. Coming soon.

   Files.png

Use Files to find all the files and docs in your inbox

 

Suggested replies – The new Outlook brings intelligent technology to your inbox to save you time. Focus on what matters more and let Outlook help with you the rest. Use suggested replies when you need to respond with a short message, just a couple of clicks and off you go.

 

Smart-Reply.png

Select a response, edit it if you need to, and send!

 

Simplified event creation — You can now quickly add events to your calendar with updated event icons, so you can quickly identify events and see location suggestions to get address details.

 Cal - quick cap.png

Updated event icons let you quickly identify events

 

Smart room suggestions – Intelligent technology in Outlook now helps you find the best room for your meetings based on the attendees, time, availability, and your preferences.

 

Room sugg.png

Outlook will recommend rooms for you

 

Simplified add-in experience — We’ve simplified the way you access add-ins while giving you more control. Outlook add-ins bring your favorite apps right to your inbox, so you can accomplish tasks faster—including saving an email directly to your notebook, translating emails on the fly, or paying your friends. You can access popular apps and and services like BoomerangEvernoteGIPHYGfycatMicrosoft TranslatorMojiLaLaPayPalTrello, and more right from your inbox.

If you were using add-ins in the classic Outlook on the web experience, they will show up pinned next to mail actions or in the drop-down menu once you open an email in the new experience. You can also install more add-ins from the Office Store—simply open an email, click the drop-down menu, and select Get Add-ins. Once installed, add-ins will show up in the drop-down menu. You can also choose to pin frequently used add-ins.

  

More ways to use and manage groups in Outlook – Group-based collaboration, powered by the Office 365 Groups service, is an integral part of working in Outlook. We received a lot of valuable feedback on groups in the past and based on that we are excited to announce we have improved existing features such as faster and simpler group creation, richer group card, more efficient group email triage, and we are also introducing new features such as group Files view that focuses on the latest file activity and group management in the People module.

 

Groups - more ways.png

 See a list of all your groups, take membership actions, or favorite a group – all in one place

 

Favorites makes things front and center – Many things at work are important and then there are the ones you can’t miss like an email from your manager or a project’s requests and updates. Favorites is perfect for those times, just add specific folders, people, or categories to your Favorites to keep them only a click away.

 Fav.png

 

Add the things you can’t miss to Favorites

 

More ways to keep up with your groups - Groups cards can now be used from anywhere inside Outlook to view membership information, and group owners can take membership actions as well, or navigate to group apps or group resources such as Files, Planner, and SharePoint site.

 

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See group information and membership with group cards

 

Take these features for a spin, and tell us what you think in our UserVoice channel.

Stay tuned to additional enhancements that will come over the next few months, including new and updated features. Based on your feedback, we’ll iterate, improve, refine, or discard them. To stay up-to-date, follow us on Twitter or keep an eye on the Office roadmap to see what is coming. But wait, there is more! We're also rolling out updates in Outlook for Windows.

 

Thank you!

 

Gabriel.

 

FAQ

Q. Who will see the toggle?

A. Organizations in Targeted Release who have not blocked the toggle

 

Q. Can I block the toggle?

A. Yes, if you are an Office 365 administrator you should have received a Message Center post with instructions

 

Q. How long will the opt-in toggle stay in Targeted Release?

A. We are driven by quality rather than a timeline, so we will release the opt-in toggle broadly when it’s ready

 

Q. Will I find all the classic experience features in the early version of the new Outlook on the web?

A. No. Since this is an early version of the new Outlook on the web, there will be some features not yet available on 9/10. You can read this article to learn more.

 

Q. What if you are missing a feature I really need?

A. You can always switch back to the classic Outlook on the web as many times as you need. You should also let us know in our UserVoice channel.

 

Q. Where can I learn more about the changes?

A. This support article is a good place to start.

 

Q. How do I join the Targeted Release program?

A. You can start here.

97 Comments
Microsoft

Hey everyone - Lots of great comments, feedback, and conversations going on! I'll try my best to respond to as much as I can here.

 

1. The "other mailbox" issue. We got a user workaround that seems to work for most:

One workaround for the missing "Open another mailbox" option in the new web Outlook is:

  • Right-click on the ">  Folders" line
  • chose "Add Shared Folder"

This gives you an experience kind of like the "open these additional mailboxes" advanced account setting in desktop Outlook.

 

2. Everyone in Targeted Release should see the opt-in toggle, if not, your admin might have blocked the toggle with a cmdlet script or your admin has chosen "Select users" for this release.

 

3. You can save attaments from an email directly into OneDrive for Business. Click on the drop down menu next to the file and choose "save to OneDrive". 

 

4. @Jon Woodley - Could you please give me more details? Search should find items inside all your folders. Are you not seeing that?

 

5. If Delve/Graph is not enabled - The Search People card capabilities will be impacted

 

6. In Settings, you can deactivate conversation mode and choose not to have a reading pane, this will maximize your inbox to see as many emails as possible.

 

7. We recommend using the latest versions of each browser, some capabilities are impacted in older versions. We've found that each major browser behaves differently. Chrome will open one new tab the first time you click on each module (Mail, Cal, People) and then keep coming back to those, Edge opens as many tabs as you open (so if you have Mail, open Cal, and then from Cal open Mail, Edge will open a new Mail tab), and Firefox stays in the same tab when you open/click on each module without opening more. We're investigating. 

 

8. If you disable Focus Inbox in Settings, your message list will be unified. All emails in one list.

 

9. We will have another communication when the opt-in goes to Standard Release, and another one for GA. TR allows admins to select which users can be in TR (Choose Select users or entire org) - So, it is possible to have only some users in TR seeing the opt-in.

 

10. The Files tab will be available soon.

 

11. Skype chat web integration is a known gap. 

 

12. You can move attachments from one mail to another. Open a new message, now open the message which has the attachment. Drag the attachment to the bottom right of your inbox (you'll see the new email you started), and then drop it there.

 

13. If your organization has set TR for selected users, those users should already see the opt-in. @Christi Hedegore are they not seeing it yet? You do not need to set your entire org for TR for the opt-in to be available.

 

14. If you were not able to make it to Ignite last week, I recommend you watch the session we had on the new Outlook on the web.

 

I hope this helps! Please, don't hesitate to ask more questions!

Thanks!

Copper Contributor

Thanks Gabriel ... the following day, it miraculously appeared with no changes made.  I guess one change that would not appear to have any impacts for this feature to display would have been changing the O365 Admin Center to the "new experience."  Glad it's now available in our tenant and appreciate all the added details you provided!

Copper Contributor

@GaboSearch as a separate function is great. It's more about 'Search Folders' which can then be made favorites as in the Desktop version of Outlook. e.g.

 

Search-Folder-Examples.JPG

 

 

 

Each of these is (apart from Junk Email) is a search folder which is defined as items that have had a particular Category applied to them. These are not currently available in Outlook on the Web reducing it's functionality for me as I find these incredibly useful to remind me to do things.

Copper Contributor

Where is the "open another mailbox" option?

Where is the "Distribution Groups" option which allows Owners to change settings to a DG?

Iron Contributor

Not available. Not really "More powerful" yet is it?

Iron Contributor

@Helios Comms Ouch!

Iron Contributor

There is a tendency recently with these "modern" changes to loose some key features in the existing interface. Every new "modern" interface change seems to be a little rushed.

Brass Contributor

I don’t really understand the critics for letting us as users get to know the product before it’s ready. To be able to test features and request missing ones is really nice. Of course, there are plenty of features that could exist and I think many of the comments shows that we as users think differently.

personally I would really like to see much higher compatibility between all cloud endpoints more than legacy stuff that exists in local outlook such as saving attachments to any site/folder. After using only web outlook for a couple of years there is nothing that pulls me “down” to outlook pro plus.

Also, the changes to iOS outlook (for example open shared calendar) is really making us mobile users extremely productive. Kudos to the team and please keep us able to receive pre-ga solutions if we switch the toggle to enable preview features.


Iron Contributor

We appreciate all the work hard work but the reason they allow us to trial new versions is to be critical and report issues as well as complimentary. So don't be surprised if threads like this appear to be negative.

Copper Contributor

Really enjoying the new web app. Would love the ability to add shared mailbox folders to my favorites.

Hi,

Is the feature of "Suggested replies" works now?
It doesn't work despite of the "the new Outlook" switch is on.

I tried on the tenant of North America and Japan.

Thanks

Copper Contributor

I would love to see the ability to customize OneDrive folders (Yes...Plural) we can save attachments to.  It would also be nice to have the ability to save to Sharepoint Documents folders...again...customizable.

 

I miss my emojis

Copper Contributor

hello I have a question regarding the face of the outlook . I love the icons with paperplanes and so . I used to have it on my computer but I had to change the version and now I dont have it anymore. I have the old ugly version. Can you please help me and explain how should I do ? Thank you image.pngthis is ihow I have now 

 

 

 

 image.pngthis s how I want to have the paperplane symbol for sending mesages.

Thank you for the help ! 

Alexandra 

Iron Contributor

Like @Marco Recchia, I'd like to know about the Skype web integration. Specifically, the 'Add Skype Meeting' is not present for Teams users and I'm assuming it's close to final, at this point and I wanted to confirm. We have several folks who use SfB for external-to-tenant meetings who would want the option to create either one.

 

Also, we're currently using the admin function to disable this feature until it's ready across the board.I may have missed something, but last I read, this was to be released Jan 1, but haven't heard a followup to confirm. @Gabo, will the admin disable remain in effect after that point for some period of time or will it be automatically eliminated and all users suddenly see the new experience?

Copper Contributor

@Gabo

Is it possible to still turn on the new outlook experience?  I've turned on targeted release for my org and don't see the option.  

Microsoft

@Bill Blais - We have started rolling out the ability for users to choose between a Skype or Teams meeting when creating a meeting in the new Outlook on the web. You can read more about it @ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook-Blog/Updates-to-Outlook-on-the-web/bc-p/313959#M905

 

If users have only one service enabled, Outlook will only show that, if the user is enabled for both then Outlook will show a drop down meanu. 

 

Hope this helps!

Microsoft

@jameskCA - The option to see the new Outlook on the web is available to all Targeted Release customers. Sometimes permissions take 24-48 hours to populate, please let me know if you still can-t see it.

 

Thanks!

Copper Contributor

@Gabo

Thanks, it showed up after a couple of days.

There's still no way to manage Distribution Groups using the new interface. At least not on the interface that is available to me at the moment (Brazil).

Copper Contributor

In the "old/current" outlook on the web, I removed the ability to configure mail forwarding in the mail settings by using a custom role assignment policy, however, when I switch to the "new" outlook on the web, the setting to configure forwarding is visible again and can be set. It appears the user role assignment policy assigned to the mailbox is no longer being enforced in the new outlook on the web. To be clear, this is not forwarding using outlook rules, but the forwarding option under the mail settings.

 

Mike

 

 

Copper Contributor

Will we still have the ability to pin emails to the top in this version of OWA?  I only use OWA because the desktop does not have this feature.

Copper Contributor

I'm ready for Outlook on the Web to support S/MIME in something other than IE. Many Mac and Chrome users would thank you.

 

Copper Contributor

I'm looking to find how to make the conference room capacity info show up.  I have all the capacities set in my rooms but they don't show up for me.  

Screen Shot 2019-01-25 at 2.33.13 PM.png

Copper Contributor

When will it be possible to use the samme shortcuts in the web version, as in the desktop client?

Copper Contributor

@Gabo Is there any word on the ability to continue to use Message Classifications within the new OWA.  We use this for these to apply transport rules and it's important functionality for us.

Microsoft

@DWCPS - How did you set up the capacity of the rooms? Admin center or PowerShell?

 

@Mike Janeiro - Is the rule disappearing when you switch to the new Outlook but back if you switch to classic?

 

@NadineK - We recently enabled that in the new Outlook. Could you please let me know if you are still having issues?

Copper Contributor

@Gabo  We did it through the Admin Center.  


Iron Contributor

New outlook missing 'Group Files' attachment option

@Gabo, first, thanks for the update earlier this year that included ability to choose either Skype or Teams for video meetings. Very important for us. Much appreciated.

 

Second, in the old/current Outlook (outlook.office.com/owa), I can search for and attach files from any group I'm currently a member of, as here:AttachFiles-OutlookOWA.png

 

In new outlook (outlook.office.com/mail), that option is completely missing, as here:AttachFiles-OutlookNew.png

 

Please add 'Group Files' for attachments to the new outlook. Or is there a reason it isn't being implemented?

 

Copper Contributor

@Gabriel Valdez Malpartida  I'm no longer seeing the "Forwarding" option under mail settings. It appears that the new Outlook on the Web is now correctly enforcing User Role policies. I don't know when this was fixed, but thank you!

 

Mike

 

Copper Contributor

Seems the completed option has disappeared when clicking on the flag icon twice in mail. Will this return?

Copper Contributor

@Gabo  Thanks for that re message classifications - is their a PowerShell option to enable it as I'm not seeing it by default.  Thanks again.



 

Copper Contributor

@Gabo  I created one Room List On-Cloud only but after 24 hours is not showing with new Outlook on the web, old Outlook on the web is working.

 

Made it next CMD-LET

New-DistributionGroup -Name "Name" -Displayname "Name" -Alias "Name" -PrimarySmtpAddress name@company.onmicrosoft.com  -RoomList

 

1.- Already tested with multiple browsers.

2.- Already clear them those browsers.

 

 

image.png

 

Thanks and regards

Iron Contributor

When we enable the "The New Look" in OWA it prevent the GAL (Directory) from being dispalyed in Outlook app and People App.

 

We do use a custom GAL 

 

-larry

Copper Contributor

@Larry Jones  With new Outlook in the web are experiencing multiple issues like:

 

1.- Takes long time to update or shows Room Lists?

2.- Hidden Conference Rooms are showed.

3.- Deleted Conference Rooms created on-prem was deleted and recreated on-cloud only and is showing 2 Conference Rooms.

 

Those previous issues are related with same phenomena?

Any idea, solution with that custom GAL you mentioned?

 

Thanks and regards

Copper Contributor

Hi !

 

I'm trying to build OWA for one of my customers, by using Chrome Application mode (run : chrome.exe --app=https://address.com). They have some Win7 Office 2010 builds that are going away, but for now, they need this kind of OWA solution.

And it seem that "New Outlook" mode pushes calendar out of chrome's app-window. Calendar opens to a new chrome browser, not inside designated app-window.

I can always block this "new outlook" feature, but was wondering if it's some setting, or something that this new version does.

 

thx

Brass Contributor

Web Outlook email processing rules have gotten more powerful, but the functions to manage them are still extremely slow and far too primitive. An automated function to CONSOLIDATE multiple rules to move messages into the same folder could dramatically streamline rules admin and fault diagnosis. The automatic function to create sorting rules wrongly defaults to very specific email identities when instead it should default to selecting emails based on the source domain. 

Finally, adding emails to folders should not immediately remove them from the inbox before users have a chance to see them. Microsoft and other email platforms should have learned from the Google Gmail approach to folders, deriving their contents from the TAGS which are applied to messages. In that way, messages can be in one folder, multiple folders, or none (all mail). It will be difficult to ever user Office 365 as a primary email platform until it's old primitive way of placing messages in one folder in a rigid hierarchy has been retired. 

Brass Contributor

Hi @Gabo 

I'm aware that I'm bringing up a relatively old conversation here (I was directed to it from a recent SharePoint Intrazone)

 

I'm wondering are there any performance considerations specific to Outlook on the Web , that wouldn't necessarily be relevant to Outlook for PC?

 

e.g. are the recommendations in relation to number of email messages, folders, nesting of folders that may result in poor web client performance but wouldn't impact performance of the PC client?

 

Thanks in advance

Brass Contributor

Hi @Tony Redmond , Wondering have you already covered this ground before? 

 

Hi @Gabo et al, 

 

I encountered a post on support.microsoft.com which talks about application pauses when the OST file grows about a certain size.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2759052/you-may-experience-application-pauses-if-you-have-a...

 

in the cloud, using Outlook for the web, we aren't talking about having OST files on our local machines anymore (unless we are also using Outlook for PC).

Is the equivalent of this OST file now located in the Microsoft cloud when we are talking about using Outlook for the web as our primary client? or more importantly , do we encounter similar issues when the mailbox in O365 is greater than 5GB in size? I'm expecting that the answer here is probably yes.

Steel Contributor

@Counie  With Outlook on the web, similar to OWA when working with on prem Exchange servers, you access the mailbox directly on the server using your web browser. The .ost file is a local, synchronized copy of the mailbox contents that exists only when you use the Outlook desktop client and choose to cache the mailbox locally to allow offline access to the mailbox, i.e., access without an Internet connection. With Outlook on the web, no content is synchronized to any client, so there is no .ost file.

Brass Contributor

@Counie  With Outlook on the web, similar to OWA when working with on prem Exchange servers, you access the mailbox directly on the server using your web browser. The .ost file is a local, synchronized copy of the mailbox contents that exists only when you use the Outlook desktop client and choose to cache the mailbox locally to allow offline access to the mailbox, i.e., access without an Internet connection. With Outlook on the web, no content is synchronized to any client, so there is no .ost file.

 

Thanks @Kreera House ,

Perhaps I didn't phrase my question appropriately . It wasn't intended to be a question about what an OST file was.

 

my query is , in relation to the article "Designed to be Fast" is that if there are known/documented performance issues related to our having OST file s stored locally for use with the Outlook Desktop product , on any hardware ( as per the support article) , above a specific size, is it possible that there are performance issues/recommendations when we go above certain mailbox sizes when using OWA (without OST files) in the cloud?

 

Or to be more direct:

Do we know what are the mailbox size to performance best practices in relation to OWA and O365? 

 

ps: my background is SharePoint btw and not Exchange so while I did know about OST files.. I'm not aware of all the guidelines that Exchange admins may have been aware of until now.. e.g. don't have more than X number of items in the inbox?

 

Steel Contributor

@Counie  Sorry, I misunderstood the question. It sounded like you thought Outlook on the web used something like an .ost file and whether that would impact performance.

 

Mailbox size is irrelevant to performance when you use Outlook on the web since you're only dealing with the information displayed on the web page in front of you. What matters is your Internet connectivity and web browser performance. Some browsers show better performance than others.

Brass Contributor

Thanks @Kreera House 

I understand what you are saying .. and I see the logic.

however reports I'm hearing from some end users is that OWA is unusable. and other people with similar hardware and network connectivity are NOT reporting this.

I've also heard from people with thousands of emails in their mailbox that they don't have any issues so I believe that it's NOT a global issue related simply to mailbox sizes.

One of the users reporting poor performance is someone who had just migrated from GMail and reported that they had approx 60 folders (I don't know how many subfolders were involved)

Are there performance considerations in relation to number of folders and subfolders (FYI: the labels used by the GMail users to classify email are migrated , by the tool that we used, over to Outlook as folders and subfolders)

Are there any performance guidelines/recommendations that you are aware of in relation to folders in OWA?

Copper Contributor

I can see this option as a mixed blessing.  On one hand, a quick search of files to get me to the right file in outlook is a great idea.  On the other hand, I can see people continuing to use this as their "filing cabinet".

 

It would be a great idea to add another column for "label" or "retention" that shows both the automated label/retention that might be configured in the tenant and the option for the end user to self-label appropriately.  How can I put this in as a requested feature?

Copper Contributor

Have seen that files is going to be added to Outlook on the Web in January. When is it going to be part of a targeted release so it can be previewed?

Thanks.

Copper Contributor

As an architect, our legal advisors and insurance carriers require us to document via a paper file all correspondence pertaining to a specific project.  We do this is to avoid any potential issue of handing our computer and all electronic files in the event of any litigation.  By handing over our computers and hard drives, this allows attorneys to go diving into all files that they might wish to do.  This filing electronically and then filing via a paper file takes a lot of time. Each project file must also have all documents in chronological order so that any reader can see a comment and then a response. The only way I can make Outlook file chronologically is to do; Date (year, month, day), Time (24-hour clock), Initials of Person Sending_Initials of Person receiving, and the brief subject concerning the email.  Each document looks something like this;  20200413 1413 DH_AB Memo_on_foundations.msg.  This takes a lot of time to format, file in the project correspondence file, and then print, and file in the project correspondence paper file.  Can Microsoft Outlook come up with an app that would make all of this filing a lot faster?

 

If formatted properly, one could easily file in the computer's hard drive or One Drive.  If one could print an entire Project/Correspondence file merely by highlighting and printing all at once, then one would avoid the steps of constantly printing each email and filing them every day, plus one would be assured that the electronic file matches the paper file.  If an architect says that it is his/her practice to make such a paper file of correspondence, then the attorneys have to accept the paper file and cannot ask and get one's computer and go on a fishing expedition.

Copper Contributor

Hallo kann mir jemand helfen,

Ich habe Microsoft Outlook (Version 2019) auf meinem MAC installiert, jedoch nicht MS 365.

Zudem habe ich MS Teams installiert und dieses funktioniert einwandfrei.

Jedoch fehlt bei mir das Feature im oberen Balken, um andere Kontakte zu MS Teams Meetings einzuladen.

Wie gehe ich vor?

Danke 

 

Copper Contributor

Love the ability to choose skype or teams when adding an online meeting. 

But, frustrated that I can not switch my decision after sending the invite. 

Is there a way to enable the ability to edit the online meeting choice? 

If not, is there a way to switch the order of the choices so we can prioritize Teams? 

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