Enhanced performance, designed for simplicity – the new Outlook for Mac
Published Sep 22 2020 08:00 AM 1.9M Views
Microsoft

A year ago, we introduced a preview of the new Outlook for Mac to our Insiders. Since then, we have been hard at work enhancing the experience, and have developed a product that is designed for you. We listened to your feedback and have continued to deliver updates with both familiar features and additional capabilities. Today, we are excited to announce that the new Outlook for Mac will be available to all of our users in mid-October via a toggle that enables you to preview the new experience (1).

 

With the new Outlook for Mac, we have reimagined the experience that you know and love, bringing even more power and simplicity to the product. Re-designed from ground up and available via a toggle – the new Outlook for Mac connects to accounts using Microsoft sync technology for enhanced performance and reliability, with functionality that showcases the best of Outlook.

 

Design elements carefully crafted to enhance productivity

A familiar Outlook experience that feels native on a Mac, the new Outlook for Mac has been meticulously crafted so that it feels smooth, easy to use, and powerful. We have incorporated friendly and modern Fluent icons that establish a consistent experience across our products and services. The refreshed, customizable message list helps you easily triage your inbox, and updates to the main mail canvas and calendar, such as the My Day mini calendar, provides a focused, cleaner feel. The end-to-end redesign brings simplicity and customization to your email and calendaring.

 

One of the Outlook design principles is to make Outlook feel native to your preferred operating environment. The new Outlook for Mac has been crafted specifically for the Mac, including the latest macOS Big Sur. You will find rounded corners in the buttons, message list, and conversation pane that are influenced by Big Sur. The light, airy design utilizes white surfaces for increased contrast on text and icons. This helps Outlook feels natural on the OS while still nesting well with elements from Microsoft’s design language. We wanted you to feel at home while using Outlook for Mac without sacrificing what makes Outlook, well, Outlook.

 

Feel at home while using Outlook for Mac with a meticulously crafted design and updated user experience.Feel at home while using Outlook for Mac with a meticulously crafted design and updated user experience.

 

Enhanced features to help focus on what matters

The new Outlook for Mac is faster and more reliable, built on Microsoft sync technology to provide enhanced performance and exciting new capabilities. Experience reduced email load times, quick syncing of your accounts, and more relevant search results. As soon as you click the “New Outlook” toggle in Outlook for Mac, you will be seamlessly launched into the new experience to see for yourself everything it has to offer.

 

We know that you have a lot going on across incoming mails, calendar events to manage, and everything in between. We’ve added new features and to ensure you can focus on what is most important and elevate your day-to-day productivity. Within the main mail screen, we have integrated My Day to surface your agenda and a two-week calendar alongside your inbox, allowing you to capture important messages and upcoming events in one place. The sidebar and My Day panes have modifiable views based on your preferences that allow you to easily adjust your focus to be at your most productive. My Day lets you choose what calendars you want to see and take action right in the pane, such as joining a meeting or sending an RSVP. For additional updates to the calendar, we have introduced a new 3-day view setting that helps you concentrate on your schedule a few days at a time.

 

We have added a brand-new People experience to bring your valued contacts and connections to a focused, dedicated place that is easy to access and manage. People view helps you separate your contacts and colleagues from your messages and events by providing a central place to manage and explore those you collaborate with often. Whether they are someone you need to follow up with or an important coworker, you can add notes to their contact information, start a Teams chat with them, or mark them as a favorite contact – all within the focused People view.

 

Updates to the main mail screen include My Day integration to elevate your day-to-day productivity.Updates to the main mail screen include My Day integration to elevate your day-to-day productivity.

 

Simplified tools to manage emails, events, and people

Updates across mail and calendar simplify your experience and ensure you have what you need, right when you need it. Support for unified inboxes streamlines how you receive messages, allowing you to receive all mail in one place, without needing to switch between individual inboxes. The new Outlook for Mac supports Office 365, Outlook.com, and Google accounts (with iCloud and IMAP support coming soon) so you can have a centralized view of all your email and calendar items.

 

Easily access the information you need through a centralized and updated search experience. The new Outlook for Mac utilizes Microsoft Search, the engine that powers other Outlook and Office 365 experiences, giving you consistent suggestions and faster results. Search across all your accounts and folders at once to effortlessly find that one important email. Search is easily accessible at the top of Outlook, and with one click, recent history and people suggestions surface to help you quickly find information that matters. Advanced capabilities give you even more control when locating important people and messages. When searching for someone, simply click on their image to view additional details, such as their organizational chart and contact information. If you are looking for something specific, use the advanced menu to filter by components such as importance, keywords, and attachments, or simply type exactly what you are looking for in the search box and our new natural language search will do the filtering so you can easily find what you are looking for.

 

When managing your schedule, we have made updates to the Outlook calendar experience to provide an easy and intuitive way to get the information you need and help you make the most of your time. Calendars are now grouped by calendars you own, calendars that are shared with you, and Microsoft 365 Group Calendars to improve overall navigation. To quickly set up a meeting, you can simply click and drag over the calendar grid to create an event. The Teams meeting toggle makes it easy to meet virtually, and Outlook intelligently suggests times that work best for seamless coordination across schedules. For meetings that are already on your calendar, click to get a preview of the meeting and view emails and files that are relevant to the event or attendees. Outlook helps you keep things organized and show up prepared.

 

The Calendar experience provides an easy and intuitive way to get the information you need and help you make the most of your time.The Calendar experience provides an easy and intuitive way to get the information you need and help you make the most of your time.

 

A customizable experience that can be tailored to you

The new Outlook for Mac provides customizable settings across the message list, calendar, and main mail canvas that can be personalized to you. From drag-and-drop arrangement of your accounts and folders to marking important people as favorites, you have the flexibility to interact with Outlook in a way that works best for you. Even the toolbar is customizable, enabling you to add, remove, and rearrange buttons to ensure those commonly used controls are only a click away.

 

Through the same toolbar customization menu, you can access your favorite add-ins to help you be more productive within Outlook. Add-ins are programs or utilities that help you automate tasks when you view or create messages. Install add-ins right from the toolbar like Microsoft Forms, Adobe Sign, Salesforce, and Zoom that help you get things done right from your inbox.

 

The message list contains a number of features that are new to Outlook for Mac. You can personalize your message list by altering the density settings, allowing you to view extended previews of each mail or compress them to see more messages at a time. For day-to-day management of your inbox, you can easily set up custom rules and swipe settings. Swipe settings are pre-set actions, such as delete, flag, or archive, that are executed when swiping an email to one side or the other using your Magic Mouse or trackpad. A new feature in Outlook for Mac, that is also supported as a swipe setting, is the ability to snooze a message. For those moments when you don’t have time to read or respond to an email, simply “snooze” it and select the time that works best for it to show up in your Inbox again as an unread email.

 

We have designed the experience in a way that is intuitive and simple, with a variety of customizable settings to manage and view your email and calendar in a way that works best for you. Outlook helps you stay on top of your commitments with more ways to personalize than ever before.

 

Outlook gives you the ability to personalize your experience with options such as Dark Mode, swipe gestures, add-ins, and a customizable toolbar.Outlook gives you the ability to personalize your experience with options such as Dark Mode, swipe gestures, add-ins, and a customizable toolbar.

 

 

Experience the new Outlook for Mac

Try out the powerful performance and simple design of the new Outlook for Mac, available to all users next month. It brings updates across Mail, Search, Calendar, and People experiences that are designed for simplicity, reliability, and customization. The updated experience is carefully crafted and specifically designed with the power of Microsoft Services to provide suggestions and insights that are relevant to you, and simplicity to enable you to customize the experience.

 

Stay up to date about what is coming to the new Outlook for Mac such as S/MIME, Delegation, ICS support, and Favorite People by visiting our roadmap. Tell us what you think and provide feedback on the new Outlook for Mac on UserVoice. If you have questions or want more information about Outlook for Mac, visit our support page.

 

You can also learn more about other recent updates from Microsoft 365 that align with Apple’s new systems such as setting Outlook as your default email client on iOS and iPad and new widgets for Outlook and Edge visit aka.ms/M365AppleOS2020.    

 

Be sure to also check out Outlook and Bookings at Microsoft Ignite 2020. The sessions should start to light up at 8AM PT on Tuesday, September 22nd.  We can’t give out stickers at Ignite this year but feel free to download our free digital give-away from here

 

(1) Please note: The new Outlook for Mac is available as a preview experience. Certain features and account types are currently not supported in the preview, such as IMAP and iCloud accounts, and Shared Mailboxes. More information about the preview experience and known issues are available on our support page and as always, new feature availability is shared on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

 

You can preview and experience new Outlook for Mac by turning on the New Outlook switch. If you would like to access features not yet supported, you can keep the New Outlook switch in the Off position and use the current version of Outlook. 

580 Comments
Copper Contributor

Is this new version already available somehow? I enabled insider previews with fast track and still have the old style Outlook.

 

Edit: Another restart of the app was doing the trick. Now there is a switch in the top right corner.

Iron Contributor

are y'all going to add the ability to open shared mailboxes before October?

Microsoft

@Martek and @JimDerlatka - The new Outlook for Mac is currently available in Insider Slow. More details on requirements for enabling it can be found on our support page. The new experience will be available to all users in October.

Microsoft

@Jason Tenpenny  Shared Mailboxes are currently targeted for release in November. Details and updates to timing can be found on the roadmap item.

Brass Contributor

With my personal world in icloud and business in Microsoft365 I've been unable to commit to Outlook as my primary email/scheduling tool on the mac due to it's lack of icloud contact and calendar sync.  Will this be available on day one of release?  Looks like there may be a "coming soon" on that one?

 

PS..  Great look and feel.  Good work!

Brass Contributor

Great upgrade, and much appreciated by a long time Outlook user. Do you know when “On my Computer Folders” will be available in the new Outlook for Mac? 

Copper Contributor

when I go to the insider slow nothing shows up for me... in fast. I only get 16.42 .....

 

any thoughts on how to force that through.. also what is the version we are looking for.

Copper Contributor

This is great, looking forward to the new release.

My only ask is to have a dedicated "Flagged" label in the left hand menu :folded_hands::folded_hands::folded_hands:

Copper Contributor

Hi @Jessica_Wilczek, can we expect similar redesign for Outlook for Windows? Thanks!

Brass Contributor

Microsoft has officially lost any sort of credibility with, at the minimum, email clients and Mac support in general. According to the Microsoft blog and roadmap, the new Outlook is being released in October. IMAP support is scheduled for December. That's right. IMAP support. You know, the protocol that allows basically all email accounts to function.

 

What is going on at Microsoft? A fledgling startup operated by one person would not make such glaring mistakes. You do NOT release software missing critical core features.

Copper Contributor

Thanks for the update but unusable without Quick Steps!

Microsoft

@semisential Support for iCloud accounts is targeted for November availability. More details on feature availability can be found on our roadmap.

Copper Contributor

I do like the l&f of new Outlook. It would be even better with visible bodytext (which disappeared since updating to macos bigsur beta)

;)

Copper Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczek it doesnt seem to be there for me.. nothing comes up for insider slow.. only insider fast currently.

 

which version of outlook should I be on for production in order or the insider slow to pick up this version.

 

ie: 2019 outlook, o365 outlook.  16.41 o365???

Copper Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczek One large feature that I see missing from the Road Map and that is still "Under Review" on the User Voice page is Public Folder support. This is critical for many businesses and educational institutions. Is there a timeline for when Public Folders will be available in the new Outlook for Mac? Thank you!

Copper Contributor

The new design looks great. 

Any chance us Windows users will see a similar update with fluent design in mind @Jessica_Wilczek ?

Copper Contributor

The lack of contact lists is keeping me from full adoption, It's crazy that this is not part of the new Outlook. @Jessica_Wilczek are contact lists in the pipeline?

Copper Contributor

I would enjoy having Outlook in a Mac Menu option. Could have a neat calendar view like Fantastical and allow you to have Outlook running in the background outside of the Dock.

 

 

Copper Contributor

Will the Single Line View of an inbox be coming to Mac Outlook? It has been available on Windows for years, and is very handy for seeing much more inbox content in a smaller amount of screen real estate. It is the thing I miss the most since moving over to a Mac. 

Brass Contributor

Super disappointed at Microsoft's approach to the new Outlook for Mac.  It's all about how it looks and not about features or usability.  It's hard to believe this has been in preview for a year and so little has improved.

 

There is currently no support for shared inboxes, IMAP accounts, MacOS notifications, folder item counts, GAL, pop-out compose window by default—the list goes on and on …

 

… but I guess it looks a bit prettier, if that's what you care about from an email client.

 

I really hope Microsoft isn't going to foist this on us until it's at least comparable to the existing product.

Brass Contributor

Any idea when it will support On Premise exchange email? For me, unusable without this key feature...

Brass Contributor

Hello,

Why do I have this error message when I want to move to the new outlook interface ?

It says that the following accounts will be not displayed. There are IMAP and exchange accounts. Only my main exchange and outlook accounts will be displayed.

Thanks

 

Capture d’écran 2020-10-06 à 11.01.08.png

Brass Contributor

@Romain5246 Exactly the same problem I am having. New Outlook doesn't support normal exchange accounts! Genius.

 

Brass Contributor

When will Exchange support be available for the new outlook for mac?

Copper Contributor

I sure would like to use the new outlook, but I cannot use my current email addresses. Reeding this page it looks like IMAP is not yet supported and that is why I cannot switch. When will IMAP be supported so I can switch?

Brass Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczek I would like to use the new Outlook, but nearly everything I need is in folders on my computer.  When will that feature be availalble? 

Copper Contributor

Nice job on the new interface. I've been using it on/off since its early preview and was excited to see it released.

 

Two features I'm looking forward to - when I'm in Word/PowerPoint/Excel and click on the email doc icon, it attaches the document to an email in a separate window but my default signature is not included. Second, when I click on To Do, it goes to the web app instead of the installed app. 

 

 

Brass Contributor

The new Outlook 2020 is a complete waste. Who would use it when you can't add IMAP or POP3 accounts. What were you thinking. I am so disappointed. We need to switch to Google.

Copper Contributor

Love it! Clean, uncluttered and the best mail client I use.

Brass Contributor

Not ready for action. Major collaboration features are missing, like shared calendars. I can read my email messages, and that's about it. It's hard to understand why Outlook on Windows and MacOS differ so much.

Microsoft

@AdamNP @chrisharris  @cheese_aholic  @Romain5246  @vct1227  @Papseflapse_66  @dealerlane @Fredrik Forsell  @duke_basketball  @Chris_Halkovic  @Musefire 

Hi there! Thank you for the feedback and questions, we love hearing from you. The New Outlook for Mac will be available to preview via a toggle that can be turned On and Off at your preference. We have introduced the toggle so that users have the ability to preview the new experience, but can also choose not to if features important to them are unavailable. There are certain features such as support for certain account types (IMAP, iCloud, etc.), Shared Mailboxes, etc. that are not yet available in the New Outlook for Mac. If you would like to access these features, you can keep the New Outlook toggle Off and use the current version of Outlook. When turning the toggle Off and switching back to the current version of Outlook, you will be prompted to provide feedback on why you are switching back. We encourage you to use this forum to let us know about which features are most important to you so we can get your feedback directly. You can also track the status of when new features will roll out by checking our roadmap.

Copper Contributor

My primary email is @yahoo.com, and my secondary is @charter.net. Both are POP3. I got a warning that the new Outlook for Mac will not allow these email accounts. Will the new Outlook for Mac ever be able to accommodate these emails? What are my options? (Changing my primary email is out of the question.)

 

Copper Contributor

Where is the shared calendar functionality? I'm able to customize the toolbar in messages and that feature is great, but there's no options to do so in the calendar tab. I see there's a folder for "People's Calendars" but there's no way to add them. 

Brass Contributor

I fail to understand why, like Outlook on Windows, the development team has not implemented the ability to show 1, 2 or even 3 months out on the calendar in Outlook for Mac.  Frustrating to only see the current month in the calendar view when most people are planning months out in advance.

I should be able to see October and November displayed with October on top, November underneath it without having to click the silly right arrow and go back and forth between a single month being displayed.  

Copper Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczek I just updated to the October Update of the stable release and still don't see the new Outlook for Mac interface. Is there a toggle switch that I need to turn on to get the new experience?

Copper Contributor

How do you show the total number of messages in the inbox in new outlook. All it shows is the new messages. I tried right-clicking to select properties, but "properties" isn't listed as an option.

 

Copper Contributor

so, you spent a year getting this right? I think not. 

 

1. can't move messages from one email account to another. I have several accounts, but I file messages in just one of them. I used to be able to move them easily. Not with New Outlook

2. Conversations. My Inbox is sorted in Ascending order. The messages in a conversation are now fixed in Descending order. How can this be better?

3. IMAP account support has gone. What? So now I have to use Mac Mail to read those emails? Are you crazy?

 

As is so often the case, common sense has been thrown out of the window, but you claim all kinds of wonderful things. Problem for you is that your new wonderful things get missed if you remove the features we use every day. Fools. 

 

MJ

Copper Contributor

The new outlook for mac is a "good start" but there are some very difficult usability changes to get used to.  The "pop-out" or "in new window" when you reply absolutely must be a feature by default.  It seems that the person who designed this didn't like "messing with all of the windows" but on a Mac, the point is to have windows everywhere, on multiple screens, and honestly, the only way I know which emails I have left to reply-to is if they are under the window.

 

Also, switching over to the calendar, screws up the reply and going back and forth between the buttons on the bottom wastes time.

 

Also, the search doesn't work as expected, especially with how apple does folders.  I have sub-folders for everything, but when I search "folder" I don't want it to search all of my sub-folders, I just want it to search the inbox.  There absolutely needs to be a search thing to only get it from the inbox, if it is NOT in a folder.  

 

The ability to create rules from emails needs to go in soon as well.  Right click -> create rule is about the best way to filter mailing lists into folders so you can read it later.  Creating a rule from scratch without it pre-filling the email address is impossible.

 

Thanks

Copper Contributor

Hello,

 

I tried to go with the new mOutlook and when converting all my emails setup in accounts inside the old Outlook, it told me they were not compatible.

 

What does that mean? I have at least 10 emails filtering in to Outlook and I want to continue to do so.

 

It said that I had to go back to using the old Outlook. May I ask you to explain what is going on here?

 

I am pulling in emails from :

 

gmail.com

live.com

bellsouth.net

 

as well several domain emails I own.

 

i.e. geeks4you.com

 

Please advise!

Copper Contributor

@MAllen57 New Outlook doesn’t yet support IMAP accounts or POP accounts. Switch back to standard Outlook and you’ll get a pop-up inviting you to describe why you’re not ready to use New Outlook. It will also reinstate the IMAP accounts for you. So they keep all the underlying data; New Outlook is mostly presentation layer. 

Brass Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczekthank you for the reply all message above, but I would point out that the feedback mechanism for switching back isn't ideal when the product limitations prevent me from even trying the new interface in the first place.

 

I have all of my mail in folders "on my computer" and an extensive set of rules to manage emails into folders. So I can't even try the new interface since it would wipe out everything I have in Outlook currently.

 

So, tying the feedback mechanism to the toggle switch doesn't really help you gain visibility to users who are prevented from trying the new interface at all.

 

My feedback is that I would be open to moving all of my mail to the server side inbox, if all of my folders and rules could be automatically migrated as well. And I would need some mechanism for managing emails if I am over my storage quota on the server (that's why I have my emails on my computer in the first place.)

Copper Contributor

@Jessica_Wilczek 

 

Any plans to fix the list of known integration issues with Google / GMAIL accounts?  

 

Just a few Examples:

  1. You cannot access attachments from an encrypted email. The attachment will show as .p7m.
    1. Note: All messages are encrypted. Not being able to view any attachments makes Outlook nearly unusable. 
  2. Attachments in events aren't currently supported.
  3. Creating, renaming, or deleting folders (Gmail labels) in Outlook is not yet supported.
  4. If you create an event on your calendar in Outlook, its default visibility is “Public,” regardless of your Google Calendar settings. 
  5. Deleting a meeting sends a response to the organizer even if you choose not to in Outlook.
  6.  etc...
  7. etc..
Copper Contributor

If IMAP isn't supported on Outlook, shouldn't it still be Beta software.  Seriously?  No IMAP?  I know it's coming, but jeez...

Copper Contributor

Great New design love it. Yet i am amazed there is STILL no way to reply/comment INLINE inside the original message as done in Outlook for Windows.

This is critical missing feature that is very limiting. In corporations and enterprises inline reply is crucial for the mail flow and conversation.

 

if its not clear what i am talking about - please view this. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/reply-with-inline-comments-within-the-original-message-te...

 

this is what missing for AGES to Outlook on Mac... disappointed.

Copper Contributor

Love the new look, especially on the Mac. Makes Apple Mail an embarrassment. Well done.

Copper Contributor

New design is nice, I like it. But the significant missing features are a non-starter. Missing shared mailboxes, GAL, pop-out compose by default, these are just 3 items I discovered in about 5 minutes that make it a no-go for now.  

Copper Contributor

Looks great, but not there functionality wise. Just did a mail merge and to finalise the merge hit yes to merge mail to 'Outbox'. Rather than do that, it sent all my messages ! Reverted back and merge to 'Outbox' works fine. Thanks.

Copper Contributor

Good start, but hoping Tasks aren't being separated out full from Outlook with To Do. Biggest reason I like Outlook is everything I need for day to day operation is in one integrated package. I don't want to open cloud links every time for something done daily.

Copper Contributor

Why are my add-ins gone? Why is the option greyed out in the tool bar. It would have been nice to release this AFTER it was ready for use.

Copper Contributor

The UI is nice looking but I wish replies would automatically open in a new window. Also, when will add-ins work? I use the webex meetings all day long for work.

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