Outlook.com beta
This is the forum where you can give us feedback about the Outlook.com beta.
Please vote on ideas you like. If you have a new idea that hasn’t been submitted by anyone else, submit it. If you have many ideas, submit them separately. This will help us decide what to build next.
We’ll reply to top issues, and will consider other suggestions as well. Thanks for trying the beta!
For more information, check out our help page.
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Too many vertical panels
I dislike having a lot of vertical panel! Keep pages simple!
My usual settings are a vertical panel for the folders Inbox, Trash, etc., and one for the list of emails, and when I click on an email, it replaces the list of emails by the content of this email. In that way, I have a lot of space to read emails.
Now, in the beta version, I have a vertical panel for the folders, one for the list of emails, one for the new menu Picture, Contacts, etc., and one for reading emails.
The items in the vertical panel…
22,827 votesThanks for your feedback! We will continue to monitor this feedback item to assess how people like and dislike the beta UI. For the specific issue of showing the list and reading pane at the same time, vs showing a full-screen list and full-screen reading pane, it’s easy to change this behavior.
Click on the settings wheel and switch “Inbox Layout” from “Show reading pane” to “Hide reading pane”
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Missing sender email address on hover and in reading pane
In the current outlook.com I am able to see the email address of the sender immediately. This is useful in the junk folder so I can see if the email could be legitimate.
This was not possible in the beta without looking at the source which is time consuming.
4,135 votesDear Outlook.com user, thanks for your feedback. We have started the work to improve this. Stay tuned.
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Conversation view settings: disable conversation view or enable item view
I like the look of the new beta, however I wish there was an option to turn off conversation view (i.e. all replies stacked in a single thread). Depending on how you use email, it can be really helpful to have all emails listed individually.
8,018 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Yes we are working on an option to disable conversation groupings for email and it will come to the beta in a future update.
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Expand the 'move to' list of folders, and also add New Folder
Users need to have the ability to move emails to any folders, not just the few shown when you click on 'move to'. The current version of Outlook allows you to expand the folder list so users can find the folder they want to move emails to, but the beta version got rid of that function.
3,808 votesThanks for using the Outlook.com beta! You will soon see an update that improves the Move experience.
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Ads take up too much space
I also have an Office 365 Home subscription... can that remove ads for me?
4,390 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! For subscribers, we are working on turning off ads in the beta and it will come in a future update. We will continue to monitor the overall feedback on the ads user experience.
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Enable sorting by sender, dates, subject, etc. in the filter dropdown
The filter tab in the earlier version allowed to sort by sender / subject etc. Please enable that
4,011 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Yes, full support for filters in the drop-down is coming in a future update.
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Please focus on performance and stability first. This beta's speed is still slow.
I have very few applications installed on my laptop, especially applications that are not built by Microsoft (e.g. Office 365, etc). Yet I continue to have issue with Hotmail crashing on me and performing extremely slow (loading ads?) when I simply want to check my e-mails. This happens in both IE and Edge. Instead of changing the look and feel, I would much rather see some efforts toward stability of Hotmail.
Thanks!4,248 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! The #1 goal of the new framework which we are testing with the beta experience is improved speed/performance and stability. You should continue to see this improve with future updates to the beta.
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Reading Pane on the Bottom
I'd like the reading pane on the bottom of the screen.
3,417 votesThank you for the feedback on the Outlook.com beta. This is a very interesting suggestion and we will continue thinking about it and monitoring it. Our understanding of what you are asking for is a 100% width reading pane which is about 50% height with the message list on top.
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Rules
I don't see a way to sort my incoming mail into folders based on rules anymore. Please bring it back.
2,359 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Rules are coming to the beta in a future update. In the meantime the workaround is to switch out of the beta to create/edit your rules and then switch back in. They will run on your email whether you are using classic Outlook.com or the beta experience.
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Allow users to turn off the sender photos and color icons in the message list
Allow users to turn off the sender photos in the message list (the middle column of the three). It's overly busy for my tastes.
(Full disclosure, I'm a Microsoft employee)
2,564 votesThank you for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta!
We will continue monitoring this feedback item. We are likely to at least make an option to turn off the sender photos / text circles. We deeply believe in the need to support different preferences in how people read and scan information on the screen.
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Bring back the Skype integration
The Skype ias apparently gone from Outlook.com beta, as the Skype button near the Settings cog icon is nowhere to be found. I think many users didn't like the integration (there was no way to completely disable it) but it still was a nice feature for Skype users.
2,116 votesThank you for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Yes we are working on Skype integration and it will be provided to the beta experience in a future update.
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Do not auto open the next email when I mark an email is junk
If you have marked a mail as a junk mail, the next mail will be opened automatically. That disturbs. I would like to move them unopened as junk mail.
675 votes -
2,016 votes
Thank you for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Today you can block any email from the Junk folder. It sounds like your desired behavior is to be able to permanently block email that is not filed under junk. We are considering this suggestion, will continue monitoring this feedback, and will reply back when we have an update.
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Hard to tell between read and unread messages
I liked some of the ideas being used in beta, but I hate the new layout! I found it far less readable. It was more difficult to differentiate between read and unread messages quickly. I'd love the option to change the layout to what I prefer. It was enough to make me opt out.
1,956 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta. For the layout, if you prefer a layout with the reading pane off (you look at a full screen list of messages until you click on email email) in the beta you can click on settings and switch reading pane off. It will be on the first settings pane. For the read/unread feedback, we will continue to monitor this to make sure we strike the right balance.
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Restore the option to use Categories / Labels / Tags
Hello,
In the current Outlook Mail you can have both Folders and Categories / Labels / Tags.
Could you enable it for the new Outlook as well?
Thank You.
1,248 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! Yes we are working on this and it will appear in the beta in a future update.
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The size of the email line is too large, you cannot fit as many emails in one screen as before.
Email line size is too large.
Even when hiding preview text, hiding reading pane and not showing attachments, the size of the line is too large. I use to see 20+ emails on the screen, now I only see 10.
We now have less screen to announce the number of emails we have.
775 votesThanks for your feedback! We are considering multiple designs here, including density settings to allow users the ability to control how much information they want visible. We will continue to monitor this feedback and will reply back when we have an update.
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Missing recover deleted items in beta
I would like it you put the feature back for recover deleted items. I now have to switch out of Beta twice to undelete a message that I deleted by accident
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Ability to change default font and size
I want the ability to change the default font in the beta, and also change the font size.
449 votesThank you for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta. We are considering this idea and will reply back when we have an update.
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Allow Block Senders to block Top Level Domains
I am pretty sure I will NEVER need to get email from the top level domains .ru or .xyz. These messages are ALWAYS spam. just let us block these top level domains.
909 votesThank you for the feedback on the Outlook.com beta! This is a good suggestion for power users and we are considering it. We will continue monitoring and will reply back when we have an update.
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Too much like gmail
Too fussy!
I really dislike the layout, look etc...it is too much like Gmail. I hate the way Gmail works. If I want my email to work like Gmail I would use my Gmail account. Keep it simple.
Keep it simple!
548 votesThanks for your feedback on the Outlook.com beta! We will only bring the best and most loved ideas to the regular Outlook.com.
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