Shared Calendars No Longer Visible
For years, I've shared Outlook calendars between my Outlook accounts and with my husband's, without any issues. However, since mid-June the shared calendars have disappeared for no apparent reason. The sharing permissions are still in place, but the calendars are no longer visible or available to add on Android, in the Outlook desktop app, or on Outlook on the web. I've spent hours Googling and tried all the usual troubleshooting steps, but nothing has worked! As a workaround, I now have to invite all @outlook.com accounts to calendar events just so everyone can see them and avoid double bookings. Has anyone come across this before and found a fix that isn't one of the standard "how-to" suggestions? Note: these are personal paid Microsoft accounts.
Search Folder Creation Issue
I've been using the new version of Outlook for around a year and a half without any issues. However, today I've noticed that I can no longer create Search Folders that filter emails by category. When I go through the process, I can name the Search Folder and choose the folder type without any problems. The issue occurs when I try to select the email categories. The category list appears, but clicking on a category doesn't actually select it. Because of this, I get the message "Select at least one category", even though I've clicked on one. This happens in both the desktop app and Outlook on the web, so it doesn't seem to be specific to my laptop. Is anyone else aware of this issue, and if so are there any workarounds?15 productivity features in the new Outlook for Windows
Hello, Outlook community. I’m Vicki Milton, a Principal Product Manager on the Outlook team. Over the last year, we’ve added important capabilities across areas such as offline support, shared mailboxes, and PST files. Alongside those milestones, we've continued to deliver smaller improvements that help people work more efficiently throughout the day. This article highlights 15 productivity features in the new Outlook for Windows that can help you stay organized, reduce routine effort, and keep important work moving. Mail features Email remains central to how many people manage communications, priorities, and follow-up. Outlook includes familiar tools for composing and organizing messages, along with newer capabilities that can help reduce friction and make inbox management more efficient. Pin a mail: Keep important messages easy to find. The Pin feature keeps a selected email at the top of your inbox so it remains visible as new messages arrive. This can be useful for items you need to reference often or do not want to lose track of, such as travel details, approvals, or active requests. By keeping priority messages in view, Pin can reduce time spent searching and help you stay focused on current work. Snooze a mail: Return messages when they are relevant again. Snooze lets you temporarily remove an email from your inbox and have it reappear at a time you choose. This can help keep your inbox focused on messages you can act on now while ensuring follow-up items come back when they are timely. It is particularly useful for requests that depend on additional information, scheduled tasks, or work you plan to handle during dedicated focus time. Add multiple categories at the same time: Organize messages with fewer steps. If you use categories to manage incoming mail, Outlook makes it possible to apply more than one category in a single action. This can help when you need to capture multiple types of context, such as project, priority, or follow-up status, without reopening menus repeatedly. It is especially useful when processing a large number of messages. Sweep: Reduce repetitive inbox cleanup. Sweep lets you create automatic actions for messages from a specific sender. For example, you can delete promotional mail after a set period, keep only the latest message in a thread, or move recurring updates to a folder. This can help reduce manual cleanup and keep your inbox more focused on items that need attention. Schedule Send: Write on your schedule and deliver at the right time. Schedule Send lets you prepare messages when it is convenient for you and send them later at a time that works better for the recipient. This can improve visibility, support more intentional communication, and reduce the need to rely on reminders or leave messages in Drafts. Simplified folder sharing: Share folders more simply. Sharing a mail folder has traditionally required extra permission steps, especially for nested folders. Now, when you share a folder, Outlook can automatically apply the visibility permissions needed for its parent folders. This can reduce setup effort, help avoid access issues for recipients, and make folder sharing easier to complete with confidence. Calendar and meeting features For many people, the workday is shaped by meetings, schedule changes, and the need to stay aligned on what comes next. Outlook includes calendar and meeting capabilities that can help simplify planning, reduce coordination overhead, and make follow-up easier. Follow a meeting: Stay informed without attending live. The Follow RSVP option lets you indicate that you will not attend a meeting but still want access to the recap. This can be helpful when schedules overlap or when a meeting is useful to monitor without joining in real time. It can help you stay connected to outcomes and shared materials while keeping your calendar more manageable. Save calendar views: Return to the calendar setup you need more quickly. Saved Views let you store specific calendar combinations and switch back to them without rebuilding the same view each time. This can save time for people who move frequently between personal, team, and project schedules. It also can make it easier to review the right set of calendars for different planning tasks. Improved meeting tracking: Work with meeting responses more efficiently. Outlook includes tools that make it easier for organizers to review and manage meeting responses. You can sort attendee lists, search for names in the Tracking view, and copy or download response details when needed. These capabilities can be especially useful for larger meetings where attendance information needs to be reviewed quickly. Meeting recap: Find follow-up materials in one place. After a Teams meeting, the calendar event in Outlook can surface a Meeting recap with links to the recording, transcript, and shared files. This can make it easier to review what was discussed, confirm details, or catch up afterward. By keeping these materials together, Meeting recap can reduce the time it takes to get oriented after a meeting. Filtered views: Reduce visual clutter in your calendar. Filters let you hide meetings you are not attending and limit the distraction of declined or informational events. This can make it easier to scan your schedule, identify conflicts, and focus on the meetings that need your attention. For people with full calendars, it can help make planning more straightforward. Change a recurring event: Update future meetings while preserving earlier ones. When plans change, Outlook lets you edit the current event and all following events in a recurring series. This can make it easier to adjust details such as time, location, or agenda going forward without changing the record of past meetings. It can simplify updates for organizers and reduce disruption for attendees. Personalization and settings Settings can play a practical role in day-to-day productivity. A few adjustments can make it easier to focus, move between accounts and calendars, and work in a way that fits your preferences. Here are several settings-related features that can help make Outlook feel more streamlined and manageable. Rename your email accounts: Make the right inbox easier to recognize. If you use multiple accounts in Outlook, you can assign each one a custom name. This can help you tell accounts apart more quickly, reduce the chance of sending from the wrong inbox, and make navigation simpler as you move between accounts during the day. Modern themes: Choose a look that supports comfort and clarity. Outlook includes theme and color options that let you tailor the experience to your preferences. Visual settings can influence readability and comfort, especially for people who spend much of the day in email and calendar. Options such as Dark Mode and color customization can help make the interface feel easier to use over time. Keyboard shortcuts: Keep familiar ways of working. In Outlook, you can choose the shortcut style you prefer in Settings. This can help you maintain existing habits, reduce adjustment time, and complete common tasks with fewer steps. For people moving from classic Outlook or Outlook on the web, shortcut flexibility can make the transition more consistent. These features reflect a broader effort to help people work more efficiently in the new Outlook for Windows. Whether you are managing a high volume of email, coordinating a full calendar, or tailoring the experience to match your workflow, these updates are designed to reduce effort and improve day-to-day productivity. For more information and step-by-step guidance, see the Microsoft Support articles and the Learning Path.
Outlook on Windows 11: when local sync re‑contaminates global settings
Introduction I want to share a finding that I believe is concerning: the Outlook client on Windows 11 can act as a vector of “re‑contamination” of local data, reactivating settings that were already disabled in the cloud. While this is not malware in the strict sense, the behavior is contradictory enough that it undermines privacy and user trust. Context of the issue To avoid any doubt, I disabled the Expanded People Suggestions option in all three possible places: Outlook client on Windows 11. Outlook Web. Global Privacy settings in my Microsoft Account. In every case, the option was disabled and the exported configuration file appeared empty, confirming that the deletion had been applied correctly. Cross‑account contamination → when another account was added to the Outlook client, the contaminated suggestions were transferred and appeared in that account as well, even though those addresses had never been used there. Evidence observed Empty file in the cloud → confirms that the deletion was effective. Desktop client re‑sync → uploads obsolete local data and reactivates the option. Result → the global configuration once again shows suggestions that had already been disabled. Injected email addresses → the suggestions included addresses that I have never used or contacted. These appear to have been introduced by third parties or internal contamination, not by my own activity. Cross‑account contamination → when another account was added to the Outlook client, the contaminated suggestions were transferred and appeared there too. Implications The Outlook client does not respect privacy preferences set in the cloud. Local data takes precedence over global settings, which contradicts modern synchronization logic. The presence of never‑used, injected email addresses raises serious concerns about data integrity and possible external contamination. This may affect many users, not just an isolated case. Reflection This behavior creates the perception that the client acts like intrusive software: even if the user deletes data in the cloud, the client “resurrects” it from its local cache. In practical terms, it is a form of re‑contamination that compromises confidence in synchronization between client and server. The fact that injected addresses appear in suggestions makes the issue even more problematic, as it suggests external influence beyond the user’s own history. Conclusion The cloud should be the source of truth. If a user disables data in Outlook Web and in the global Microsoft Account settings, no local client should have the ability to reactivate it. This finding deserves attention because it directly affects privacy, data integrity, and the coherence of the Microsoft ecosystem. Invitation Has anyone else observed this behavior in Outlook for Windows 11? Have you seen deleted cloud settings reappear after reinstalling or re‑synchronizing the client, or injected email addresses that were never used showing up in suggestions?
Auto selecting first email not working
Within the past few days, something changed in Outlook web mail where it no longer automatically selects the first email in whatever folder I'm in, and instead forces me to select something manually. I've always just opened webmail and it defaults to the inbox and auto-selects the first email listed, and I have the reading pane set to show on bottom. Something changed in the past couple days to where that no longer works. No matter what folder I go to, nothing is selected, forcing me to manually select the first email in each folder. I looked through the entire settings area, and I don't see anything to adjust this. Searching online, I see options of "What do you want to happen when you open Outlook", but that may be part of the classic layout options because in the new UI, I don't see anywhere to adjust this. All I want is to have it go back to the previous behavior of auto-selecting the first email in the folder (inbox or any others) when I select the folder. How to I set it back to that behavior? Also to note - in Outlook desktop, it works like it always did (when I open the desktop client, it defaults to the inbox and has the first email auto-selected so I can view it in the pane below), so this appears to only be in webmail. I've tried re-sync, cleared browser cache, and even across multiple browsers, but they all do the same and won't auto-select the first message, so it appears to be some setting in O365 on the web/cloud side, I just can't figure out how to change it.
new mail-account automatically forwards external mails to internal address
Hi, last week I created a new mail-account to our outlook-users and added a mail-license. Only internal mails was received in the new inbox and after troubleshooting and using mail-trace I discovered that the mails was forwarded to another internal inbox. This is not something that is configured anywhere in the mentioned settings when trying to troubleshoot forwarding-issues. How do I turn this off, so that my new employee can receive external e-mails. We don't have any policies or rules set up, that should trigger this behavior. Regards Lars
Cannot reset account password
I created an email address for RSVP purposes. I do not remember the password, and cannot find what I wrote it down on, and have never sent an email from it so I cannot provide enough information to recover the account. I have phoned support and all the bot does is refer me to the website reset which does not work. How can I talk to a real person or recover this account?
The New People Directory Search Experience in Outlook: Smarter, Faster, and More Connected Than Ever
Managing contacts has always been central to how we work - but the way we work has changed dramatically. Today, we're excited to unveil a completely reimagined People experience in Outlook that makes finding, organizing, and connecting with your contacts faster and smarter than ever before. Whether you're reaching out to a colleague across the globe or managing your most important business relationships, the new People in Outlook is designed to get you there in seconds, not minutes. Instant People Directory Search: Find Anyone in Seconds We’ve heard you loud and clear: navigating complex organizational trees and deeply nested directory hierarchies to find a single contact takes too long. So we built something better. The new People in Outlook features a powerful, intelligent search experience that puts every contact at your fingertips - instantly. Simply start typing a name, location, job title, department, or even a personal note you’ve added, and People in Outlook surfaces the right person immediately. No more drilling through layers of org charts or scrolling through alphabetical lists. Just type, find, and connect. Here’s what makes it work: Lightning-fast keyword search - Search across names, email addresses, job titles, locations, departments, and even your own notes and tags. A few keystrokes is all it takes. Smart suggestions - As you type, People in Outlook intelligently surfaces the most relevant matches based on your communication patterns and organizational context. One search, every contact source - Whether the person is in your organization’s directory, your personal contacts, or a linked account, search brings them all together in one unified result set. Instant action - Once you find who you’re looking for, you can email, call, or start a Teams chat directly from the search results - no extra clicks required. This is contact discovery reimagined. What once required navigating through hierarchical trees and multiple clicks now happens in a single, fluid interaction. It’s the fastest way to find and connect with anyone in your world. A Modern, Unified Contact Management Experience Beyond these major innovations, the new People in Outlook brings a complete refresh to how you manage your contacts every day: Modern multi-column table view - See all your contacts at a glance with a clean, customizable table layout. Sort, filter, and scan your contacts faster than ever. Quick actions at your fingertips - Email, call, or chat with any contact directly from the contact list. No need to open a contact card first. Multi-select and bulk operations - Need to categorize, email, or manage multiple contacts at once? Select them all and take action in a single step. Categories for flexible organization - Organize your contacts with color-coded categories that work across Outlook. Tag contacts as “Key Clients,” “Project Team,” “Vendors,” or anything that fits your workflow. Import and export - Easily bring contacts in from CSV files or export your contact data whenever you need it. Consistent experience everywhere - Whether you’re using Outlook on the desktop, Outlook on the web, or Teams, the People experience is the same - modern, fast, and reliable. Built for Performance and Reliability The new People in Outlook was built from the ground up with performance at its core. After extensive testing and feedback from thousands of users within Microsoft, we’ve delivered an experience that is not only feature-rich but also fast, stable, and reliable - even with large contact lists. Every interaction is designed to feel instant and responsive. Get Started Today The new People experience is currently available on the New Outlook for Desktop, and is rolling out now for Outlook on the web for all Microsoft 365 users. To explore it: Open Outlook and click the People icon on the left navigation rail. Start searching for anyone - by name, title, location, or any keyword. Explore your contacts in the new table view and try out quick actions. We’re incredibly excited about what the new People in Outlook means for how you connect and collaborate. This is just the beginning - we have even more innovations in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share with you. We’d love to hear from you! Share your feedback directly within Outlook by selecting Help > Feedback, or join the conversation in the Microsoft Tech Community. ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The People in Outlook team is committed to building the best contact management experience in the world - and we’re just getting started.
