Outlook (New)

[chazzy2501]

Who thought this was a good idea! I've scrambled to disable this as users are just clicking it and loosing folders etc. Why would I want a webapp instead of the full desktop software!

 

Thankfully after some new ADMX templates in the policy store you can stop it being offered, you'll also need a login script to uninstall it for curious users!

 

what a pain, default in enterprise should be NO

[DalekSec]

This has been pushed out for over a year now, with most things with SaaS offerings, its coming wether you like it or not.

 

Produce guides on how to use the new one and do a slow rollout, you can block it but then you're old one won't be patched anymore and before you know it security holes!

[Sylv3r]

A number of our staff don't like it but i've either grown to get to use to it, or anything I need is available and i've not missed anything it doesn't do

[foofighterjim]

Only thing missing in the New Outlook that I've actually needed was the ability to export mailboxes to a PST file, only work around was to get a device and revert back to the classic version of Outlook.

[TechMonkey]

One thing I have found was in-place archive mailboxes are missing. Which is annoying.

[Space_Munkey]

This has been pushed out for over a year now, with most things with SaaS offerings, its coming wether you like it or not.

 

Produce guides on how to use the new one and do a slow rollout, you can block it but then you're old one won't be patched anymore and before you know it security holes!

 

It's frustrating but I think it's a reality we just need to suck up and start embracing.

[BKGarry]

My issue with new outlook is not being able to pin Shared Mailboxes inboxes to your favourite, I have 4 different shared mailboxes I have to keep an eye on. I cannot be going hunting to check

[Norphy]

It's frustrating but I think it's a reality we just need to suck up and start embracing.

 

It's not as if there's going to be much choice. Eventually Microsoft will stop supporting old Outlook with Exchange, then the choice will be either Outlook on the Web or New Outlook.

[PotNoodleTech]

When moved email systems 5 years ago I removed outlook and everyone had to use the web version of office365. Becuase I did it as part of "big email upgrade" everyone didnt really notice. 5 years on every just uses it fine on the web on a daily basis, no difference - except it just works on whatever device they're on rather than all of the issues that full fat outlook brings. Of course when the world went to pot in covid everyone just accessed their emails on chromebooks as per normal - literally no issuses or pause in productivity.

 

Overall I don't understand establishments that are clinging on to Outlook97.exe for grim death. The world is not going to implode if you open it in a chrome browser tab instead and infact it will make your life easier and the lives of all of your staff.

[speakercon]

The world is not going to implode if you open it in a chrome browser tab instead

 

Yes it will and more importantly I CAN'T DO MY JOB without it...

[Boredguy]

One thing I have found was in-place archive mailboxes are missing. Which is annoying.

 

I've got an in place archive showing in new look Outlook. Its now in the main mailbox under the "In-Place Archive -" folder directly above the "Shared with me" folder for your shared mailboxes.

 

In old Outlook it would be an entirely different main folder outside of your account, but it's all within now which I find cleaner with multiple different school accounts in the same client.

 

Only thing that really hasn't been address by MS and is likely not to, is allowing the Shared With Me folders to be added to Favourites so you know when it's updated. If they are 365 Group mailboxes it's fine

[Roberto]

Overall I don't understand establishments that are clinging on to Outlook97.exe for grim death. The world is not going to implode if you open it in a chrome browser tab instead and infact it will make your life easier and the lives of all of your staff.

 

We have a number of Line of Business apps that depend on an olde worlde style traditional COM Outlook plugin. We're working hard to reduce that number and I've personally taken massive strides to cut the number of plugins like this that need to be updated and managed (and that's a huge resource saving across the 20-thousand plus installs we have so I'm very pleased with myself about that) but we can't just turn the remainder off.

Edited March 10, 2025 by Roberto

[Moohorse]

There are two types of people in this world. Those that hate the new Outlook, and those who are wrong.

[Oaktech]

I've had some back and forth with the product design team about 'new outlook' after raising issues with import and export of PST, opening PST and EML files from double click and integration for merge to email in word. While none of it is official, I've been told that far more features are in the pipeline for the next 2 years and every time I've asked about a specific feature I've been told that it's either in development or on the roadmap.

 

I don't think com plugins are coming back, but most of the other things in this thread should be available in time.

[psydii]

We have a few users here who two or three times a year need to send a few hundred mail-merged emails *from* a 'shared mailbox'. We have always used a second Outlook profile for these users that using the 'shared' mailbox as the primary mailbox for the purpose of this task. We've done it like this for probably twenty years.

 

All the "big" mailshots are of course done with a dedicated bulk-mail platform, but for these ones (less than 2000 email per year, and less than 250 emails per mailshot) it seems crazy to pay/set up something completely new with all the hassles of dmarc/spf etc....

[Roberto]

I've had some back and forth with the product design team about 'new outlook' after raising issues with import and export of PST, opening PST and EML files from double click and integration for merge to email in word. While none of it is official, I've been told that far more features are in the pipeline for the next 2 years and every time I've asked about a specific feature I've been told that it's either in development or on the roadmap.

 

I don't think com plugins are coming back, but most of the other things in this thread should be available in time.

 

I think the removal of com plugins in 'new' outlook is seen as a feature, not a bug. And to be fair, the old plugin model is a beast to support, probably a security risk, and is well overdue for its retirement.

 

I wonder how long until we see similar versions of the rest of Office. I'm pretty sure Microsoft have them in test but I think they really would need them to be much closer to feature equivilency with the 'old' versions before they could even begin to push them out.

[psydii]

I think the removal of com plugins in 'new' outlook is seen as a feature, not a bug. And to be fair, the old plugin model is a beast to support, probably a security risk, and is well overdue for its retirement.

 

I wonder how long until we see similar versions of the rest of Office. I'm pretty sure Microsoft have them in test but I think they really would need them to be much closer to feature equivilency with the 'old' versions before they could even begin to push them out.

 

They've been updating the other desktops apps quite significantly over the years, but Outlook had the immutable technical debt of legacy (on-prem) Exchange support being at the core of its design, and combined with associated security risks I can see why they're pushing to retire it.

 

 

But consider how the move to a modern OneNote went, if they did that to Word or Excel, I'd imagine many more CIO's would seriously question whether it was worth sticking with Microsoft over Google. Indeed they've rolled back the OneNote migration back into the formerly legacy Win32 based app!

[Roberto]

They've been updating the other desktops apps quite significantly over the years, but Outlook had the immutable technical debt of legacy (on-prem) Exchange support being at the core of its design, and combined with associated security risks I can see why they're pushing to retire it.

 

 

But consider how the move to a modern OneNote went, if they did that to Word or Excel, I'd imagine many more CIO's would seriously question whether it was worth sticking with Microsoft over Google. Indeed they've rolled back the OneNote migration back into the formerly legacy Win32 based app!

 

100%. The need to rewrite Outlook is totally not controversial in my book, even if the rewrite we've ended up with is controversial. When I was a Microsoft MVP some time ago now I spent time with the Exchange team. One of the PMs had a "rigged" magic 8-ball on his desk and whenever you asked him why Exchange did something dumb, he'd shake the magic 8 ball and the answer: "Outlook not so good" came up. Then I spent some time working withthe Office team and found people who felt the same way about Exchange, albeit without the cutesy gimmick.

 

In both cases, it's legacy, technical debt that's the issue. Microsoft's ability for its OS to run 30-year old apps and connect to systems using 40-year old standards is at once its biggest competetive advantage and its biggest curse. Apple as a counterpoint, whatever else you think about them, are simply not encumbered by the need to remain compatible with OS/2, or deal with the code in an important subsystem that was written 25 years ago by someone who then retired 20 years ago and died 10 years ago, and which nobody understands or dares touch today.

 

Apple get criticised for their relative frequent and heavy handed deprecation of old systems but I think it allows them to act and react much faster to both trends in system design and changes in customer desires.

[mikes]

We have shared mailboxes that automatically open when I assign those users permissions in o365 - this works fine in old outlook, doesn't work at all in new outlook. Why remove this - what to use instead? can't see the point in this new Outlook myself it seems worse in every way

[Boredguy]

We have shared mailboxes that automatically open when I assign those users permissions in o365 - this works fine in old outlook, doesn't work at all in new outlook. Why remove this - what to use instead? can't see the point in this new Outlook myself it seems worse in every way

 

So the mailbox isn't showing in the "Shared with me" folder when in New Look Outlook.

[foofighterjim]

We have just issued guidance for staff to stop using the New Outlook client now, we have had two separate issues in our office with it in recent weeks. The first one actually happened to me, I had the client running and I was working as normal, I was sending emails but wasn't receiving any replies, I eventually opened Outlook in the browser and there were about 20 emails that had been delivered to my mailbox that hadn't come through to the client, everything that I had sent had gone out though, closing and opening the client made the messages appear.

 

Another issue happened to a colleague, they were sending emails last week to someone else in the office, but they weren't received. They checked their Sent Items but could not find the emails, the emails were eventually received yesterday, all in one batch, nearly 6 days after they were "sent", I ran a message trace and Exchange delivered it as soon as it received it. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the user concerned and they wouldn't have written the email again as it was time sensitive, leaving the finger pointing firmly at New Outlook.

[localzuk]

We generally migrate people to the new Outlook whenever they report an issue with the old one now - most of the time, it is an issue with shared mailboxes (they are so unreliable with old Outlook, but seem to be pretty solid in new). There's a learning curve, but so far most people we've migrated seem to accept it.

 

The reality is, Microsoft have long been sounding the end of old Outlook, so we'd be better to work on migrating everyone over sooner rather than it be a big shock and switch when the day does eventually come. The date I've heard is 2029 for the EOL.

[supportman]

Been using it school wide for a while now. It has a few scaling issues and crashes sometimes when viewing inbuilt PDF's but otherwise I think its fantastic.

 

Love the modern look, the smiley reactions, easy setup, dark mode and overall simplicity. You soon get used to it.

[BKGarry]

Just let me favourite a shared mailbox folder. Do that and I will switch lol

[supportman]

And minimizing "Older than a week" emails would be awesome as well. I only seem to be able to minimize "Today" and "Yesterday" which is a bit annoying.