Microsoft Announces New Outlook for Windows
- Paul Thurrott
- May 17, 2022
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After years of leaks, Microsoft is finally ready to go public with Project Monarch, er ah, One Outlook, oops, the new Outlook for Windows!
“An early preview of the new Outlook for Windows is now available to Office Insiders in the Beta Channel to try,” Microsoft’s Margie Clinton writes in the announcement post. “The new Outlook for Windows [is] designed to help you be more productive and stay in control of your inbox. This version has new intelligent features like message reminders and a new calendar board that puts your email, calendar, and To Do in the same view. In addition, with Microsoft Loop components, you can collaborate across Outlook and Teams while staying in the flow.”
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The new Outlook is currently available via a toggle in what I’ll call classic Outlook for those in the Beta channel of Office Insiders. When enabled, you’ll get a new version of the app that looks and works a lot like the web version—as noted by the recent leak—and with the following new features:
Microsoft Loop components. These components can be copied and pasted across Outlook emails and Teams chats and they always stay in sync so everyone can stay up to date wherever and whenever they work, Microsoft notes. You can learn more here.
More efficient attachments. In addition to supporting @mentions (“at mentions”), the new Outlook also supports @files and @documents for files you store in the cloud, making it easier to find what you need.
Intelligent assistance. As with other email solutions, the new Outlook will automatically remind you about missed messages that need replies and ask if you need to do so. This message reminder will also be pinned at the top of your inbox until you dismiss it.
My Day pane. The My Day pane lets you drag and drop email messages as tasks to your To Do so you can return to the message later. You can also use My Day to reserve time in your calendar to complete tasks by dragging and dropping a task into the calendar.
New Calendar board view. The Calendar board lets you organize calendars, files, To Do lists, goals, and more and manage it in a single view.
New Outlook RSVP. The new Outlook helps you communicate how you plan to attend a meeting, either in-person or virtually.
Pinning. A new pinning capability lets you “stick” emails to the top of your inbox so they won’t be forgotten.
Because it’s still a preview, the new Outlook has some known issues that you should check out before diving in. You can learn more here. The biggest one, of course, is that it only works with commercial and education Microsoft 365 accounts, meaning that those with a Microsoft account (Microsoft 365 Family or Personal) cannot test this app at this time.