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The new Outlook app has caused a stir. It has been a major talking point among How-To Geek readers ever since it first launched in 2023, primarily because it lacks some essential features that have been around for years in its predecessors.
I've previously written about the benefits of the new Outlook—of which there are many—but it would be remiss of me not to highlight some of the new app's drawbacks and how they can be improved. And some of them are fundamental functionalities that you would have expected Microsoft to address before rolling out the "updated" app.
Merge (Unify) Inboxes
In the new Outlook for Windows, you can't unify all inboxes into one. This handy option—which you have on the Outlook and Gmail mobile apps—would mean that those of us who have added multiple email accounts to our desktop Outlook app could see all inbox items simultaneously. Instead, we have to click between them all, which is a time-consuming undertaking.
While adding each inbox to your Favorites with the message count indicator enabled is a semi-workaround to this issue, it doesn't solve the problem for people with more than a handful of accounts.
Staying on the topic of managing multiple accounts, moving emails between inboxes—a very simple process that has been around for years in classic Outlook—is not an option in the new Outlook. Many Microsoft users have bemoaned this absence, with one person saying, "That feature was essential to managing work and personal emails," and another explaining, "The ability to move emails between accounts is an absolute necessity."
If Microsoft wanted to stem the flow of people switching to alternative email apps, this would be a good place to start.
Changing the display name (what people see when they receive an email from you) is one of the most basic functionalities an email client could have, and previous versions of Outlook, let you do this (via File > Account Settings). However, following the disappearance of the File menu in the new Outlook, Microsoft hasn't offered an alternative route.
Enable Exchange ActiveSync Connectivity
Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) enables users online and offline access to their third-party-provider emails, calendar, contacts, and tasks in Outlook. Well—it used to.
Frustratingly, the EAS protocol is not supported by the new Outlook. In fact, EAS was last fully available in Outlook 2013 to support the previous hotmail.com and outlook.com infrastructure, but given that this system has changed to Exchange Online, EAS support has been gradually phased out and, now, completely removed. This presents issues for companies wishing to remotely connect to their on-premise Exchange server, and while Windows Mail and Calendar apps have been a suitable EAS-supporting alternative, they are currently being phased out and replaced by the new Outlook app.
One of three things needs to happen to fix this issue. Outlook needs to reintroduce EAS support, third-party EAS servers need to support Outlook, or—unfortunately—organizations need to change how they manage their emails. Alternatively, Microsoft could "open-source" the Mail and Calendar apps, and let users maintain them themselves.
Some people have also reported issues with sending emails via IMAP in the new Outlook, with messages becoming stuck in Draft. As a result, Outlook is quickly losing its reputation as a viable global email management app.
Previous versions of Outlook automatically analyzed your email once you began typing and adjusted the language accordingly. However, the new Outlook only does this if you have enabled the relevant language first in the Editor. Doing this takes several clicks (Options > Editor > Editor Settings > Manage Spellcheck Languages), a significant downgrade from the now-vanished automated process.
Once you have enabled the relevant languages, you can use them all in the same email, and Outlook will automatically apply the right Editor language to the right sentences, but it would be so much better if you didn't have to enable them in the first place.
Add a Reminder to Flagged Messages
You can choose a flag date in Outlook when you flag a message in any folder, meaning the message has a due date attached to it. However, unlike in classic Outlook, you can't add a follow-up reminder to the flag. You used to be able to select the message and click "Add Reminder" in the Follow Up drop-down menu on the ribbon, but this option has been removed altogether.
As a workaround, you can Snooze emails in your inbox, which temporarily removes them from sight and makes them reappear as unread emails at a defined point. However, this only applies to the inbox folder, meaning you can't create alerts for other items in other folders. Also, the Snooze function isn't a viable option for people who want to keep the important emails in sight, even if they don't want to deal with them until later on.
Microsoft seriously needs to consider reintroducing this option to the latest version of the Outlook desktop app.
Show More Attachments in Incoming Emails
Unless you use a large monitor, if you receive an email with more than one attachment, the new Outlook only shows the first one. This means that you might accidentally miss the additional attachments. My guess is that Microsoft wanted to condense the Reading Pane—since it seems to have squashed everything else in the new app—but I'd rather have a screen clogged with lots of attachments than miss an important document due to a more simplified interface.
Simplified Doesn't Have to Mean Less Usable
The simplified layout makes it harder to access some of the program's essential tools. Moreover, the layout changes have been drastic, so people who use Outlook every day have to quickly adapt to what seems more like a totally different app than an upgrade.
I'm sure you're used to clicking "File" to access some of the most fundamental tools in Outlook (and all the other Microsoft apps, for that matter). Well, that's gone. Microsoft recently revamped the File menu in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint online, and many are hoping that the company will introduce the File menu to Outlook.
What's more, there's no Quick Access Toolbar (QAT). I've previously written about customizing the Word and Excel QATs to perform routine tasks with a single click, but this isn't possible in the new Outlook. Yes, you can customize new Outlook's ribbon, and create Rules and Quick Steps to manage your emails, but having a QAT would mean you could quickly format your emails without having to remember all the Outlook keyboard shortcuts or spend time searching the new, simplified ribbon.
To give Microsoft some credit, it does welcome and respond to feedback. For example, the company recently announced it will improve offline access to the desktop app, and some of the features Microsoft said it planned to roll out "in the upcoming months" when it first launched the new Outlook to Microsoft Insiders have already been implemented, like support for third-party email accounts. However, it can sometimes take months—or even years—for Microsoft to move a new feature from the "development" phase to the "rolling out" and "launched" phases, and many loyal Microsoft customers are starting to lose patience.