Bring back the look and feel of Outlook 2010
Outlook 2016 has lost the great UI that Outlook 2010 had. The current colors, fonts, clarity, shapes, icons, etc. are very hard to see and understand. Folders are widely space, screen real estate is squandered, and work productivity is reduced. I realize that many of the changes are to make outlook more compatible with touch screens and mobile apps. However, most Outlook users use it for WORK. We use a keyboard and mouse. We do not use touch screens, but do need Outlook to be easy on the eyes for 8+ hours per day, fast, and easy to use. We manually file emails in folders and keep records that need to be quickly accessed. Perhaps there needs to be two versions - one for keyboard and mouse users that is similar to 2010, and one for touch screen users with all that extra space and washed out icons and colors.

41 comments
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Anonymous commented
The other problem, is if you wish to do something, like recall an email, let's say and you search on how, it tells you from using the 2010 top ribbon. Please provide the classic option and then let the client decide which they prefer.
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Anonymous commented
Change GUI to enable reverting to classic OFFICE 10 in look and feel
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Lazaros Spyridopoulos commented
Taskbar icons for both MIcrosoft Word and Outlook are blue. In case a user has both the programs open (especially if he/she has many word windows open) it confuses the user and instead of pressing the word he/she presses the outlook icon.
Please consider to change the color of Outlook taskbar icon to something else, that is different from the usual colors. -
Anonymous commented
Put the option to use the office 2010 interface in the options. The new look and feel is extremely inefficient for viewing. It is eating up a massive amount of my time at work to simply find and read e-mails efficiently. It's straining my eyes and giving me migraines. I have tried to change everything as much as possible and it is just hard to view and read anything efficiently. This was not a good move Microsoft. Is anyone else having this problem? Is there like a class action out there for this or something?
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Anonymous commented
Make an option for Outlook to look and feel like Office 2010 version. All the newer versions look cartoony and unprofessional.
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Hubert commented
I do not know previous colour.
I hadn't use Outlook for nearly 20 years (only Gmail and GSuite). This year I have to use Outlook. Colours and clarity is horrible. No contrast and no posibility of full customisation. -
Matt commented
The new icons are not distinguishable enough. All have only thin lines. No colours used. Very bad for usability!
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Anonymous commented
New icons look like they were created by a 3rd grader.
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MAT commented
Allow to revert to the old Ribbon icon set in Outlook 2016 especially in Enterprise scenario.
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er ra commented
Allow to revert to the old Ribbon icon set in Outlook 2016 especially in Enterprise scenario.
just like i've always said...user voice is a joke...even when a large number of people request something, its ignored
original request closed without justification or reasoning...just pathetic excuses
https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/322590-outlook-2016-for-windows/suggestions/35619958-allow-to-revert-to-the-old-ribbon-icon-set-in-outl -
Paul Crimi commented
Please allow us to revert back to the original icons used in the Outlook 2013 email client. The new ones are hard to read and do not look good.
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Olga commented
Absolutely agree, I am an experienced user who spends more than 12 hours a day at Outlook and this new look and feel is very distracting and counterproductive. I've already spent five hours trying to customise it but still not good enough. Removed all fizzy icons, increased fonts, searched for the work around to show categories in colour and implemented it with compromise of a totally unnecessary text category to the left, and still struggling to group emails by day and week instead of having each email preceded by the redundant line "Received on...". Removing that leaves the list of emails without showing how many emails I still have in my inbox since the previous day. There must be an option to use the old look and feel in Outlook (and hopefully not this one but the previous!) - Gmail retains the look and feel and only offers users to switch to a new one reassuring that the user can always restore the old look and feel in a click.
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Jay Libove commented
Icon changes are gratuitous. The new 'trash can' instead of the previous 'X' is gratuitous, blends in more with the other icons so it's harder to see, and did I mention, is gratuitous? Change for change's sake IS BAD. It interferes with usability. Please go back to the previous icons and stop making gratuitous changes!
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Anonymous commented
New color scheme is horrible for readability. And the latest update makes it even worse. Over a year but no response.
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Anonymous commented
The washed out colors are absolutely killing me.
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Daniel Hasler commented
During the last update the look & feel of Outlook New E-Mail changed complete
- From/To/CC/Subject field is much bigger
- From/To/CC/Subject has no "boxes" anymore
- Text size in the E-Mail field is much smaller, almost unreadablePlease roll back to the previous, usable look & feel
In general: update stability & security, but DO NOT always change the layout without asking the user and give the option to keep the original layout
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Brendan Nash commented
Want to have the previous interface of Outlook after a recent update. The current build is 16.011629.20210 64bit
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gpugh@jsintl.net commented
Sometimes people don't like your new changes to their programs, you should provide an easy access button on the menu to go to your old view if you like. I really hate the new look, and it's already caused me to make several mistakes.
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Kenneth commented
The email new user interface is horrible, don't like it. Give users the option to accept or retain the original system. I prefer the previous interface, please allow users to go back to the previous interface.
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Anonymous commented
New icons for Outlook, Word, etc are hard to distinguish. They appear blurry and have de-emphasized the initial for the application.
Please use more simple color gradations and enlarge the O and the W, etc. to make it easier to distinguish.