Microsoft has been working on a completely new Outlook email app for Windows for over a year, intended to replace the Windows 10-era Mail and Calendar applications, and eventually the classic Windows Outlook client. Now, the new Outlook app is officially available for everyone, and is starting to roll out as pre-installed with Windows 11.
The new Outlook for Windows is now fully available for personal accounts, after being used by millions of people in the preview stage — a full release for commercial users will come soon. It will be preinstalled in Windows 11, starting with the major update rolling out later this month, or you can install it right now from the Microsoft Store. According to the app listing, it even works on Windows 10.
The updated Outlook is based on the Outlook.com web app, with the same basic layout and integration with Microsoft 365 services. It has a simplified and sleeker interface compared to the legacy Outlook application, and it works with email addresses from Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, or any other provider that supports IMAP. There are also a few features that were unavailable in the old Mail and Calendar Windows apps, such as scheduled email, pinning emails to the top of your inbox, and a unified "My Day" view that shows your upcoming calendar events and tasks. It also renders HTML emails much better than the older Mail app or classic Outlook.
Microsoft's new email app is just intended to replace the Mail and Calendar apps in Windows right now. The company plans to continue adding new features until it's also comparable to the classic Outlook for Windows (the paid app included in Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Office before that), at which point it will replace the classic Outlook as well. Microsoft said earlier this month that there's "not a strict timeline yet" for that transition, but it might happen around 2025 or 2026.
Not everyone is happy with the new app, though. It's already down to 3/5 stars on the Microsoft Store out of 126 reviews, with some complaints of crashes, slower loading times, and getting stuck while loading messages. Hopefully, the bug fixes keep on coming.
Source: Microsoft