The new Outlook.com
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This is the forum where you can give us feedback about the new experiences in Outlook.com.
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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I like the mode with the Reading Pane off
You turned it on for me... can you let me turn it off?
The Reading Pane takes up too much space on the right, and I want my previews to show up in an ordered way (right now it might be a little hard to tell which word belongs to which thing).
29,224 votesThanks for trying the Outlook.com beta! We’re glad to inform that you can turn the Reading Pane off yourself by taking these steps:
1. Go to Settings (you should see the Quick Settings in the side pane)
2. Reading pane > Hide (it’s a radio button)If this is the mode you prefer, go right ahead and personalize your Outlook.com that way!
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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.
9,817 votesDecember 2017: Thanks for your patience and continued use of the Outlook.com beta! We roll out new improvements every week, and are elated to announce that a recent update opened up this feature to you! You now can turn off Conversation View and show each item in your message list as its own entry. To do so, use the Settings (gear-shaped button) menu.
We will continue to make other improvements to the Outlook.com beta experience; thanks for your support!
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Want Classic Back!
Title: Want Classic Back: I want switched back to classic view. There is no option for me to switch to classic. I was forced to use beta. Please make it an option to choose.
7,766 votesFirst off, I just want to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time and providing feedback on the new Outlook.com experience. I totally appreciate that updates can often be frustrating when things change. I also want to thank everyone that has provided feedback over the course of the Beta to ensure that we address feedback.
With that being said, I do want to offer some types/advice on some options that you can select to get a view that is more in line with the old experience. This includes turning off the Colored bubbles :)
First click on the Gear in the top right hand corner. This will load the Quick Settings Pane. This pane includes all of the key features that are likely different between the old experience and the new experience.
To get a view that is similar to the old view I would turn off…
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Ads take up too much space
I also have an Office 365 Home subscription... can that remove ads for me?
6,331 votesUpdate January 2018:
We have confirmed that all users whose email addresses have an Office 365 subscription attached to it are getting the ad-free Outlook.com experience. We encourage anyone who would like the ad-free Outlook.com experience to sign up for an Office 365 subscription, which comes with a plethora of additional perks and benefits.
In addition to this, users who would like to have a larger reading surface may find the Reading Pane Off/Hidden mode more preferable. This setting may be found in the Quick Settings panel, under Reading Pane > Hide.
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6,236 votes
Update 9/19/2017: You can now turn this off in the settings. Thanks for using the Outlook.com beta! We hope you like it.
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Display Modes for Density or Compact
isn't it possible to have more compact view? menus are taking lots of space in screen and way too annoying.
5,838 votesI again thank each and everyone of you for using Outlook.com and for providing all of your feedback. I wanted to let you know that as of today we have enabled Density settings. There are three modes which control how tight and how much information is shown on the screen.
To change the density settings click on the gear in the top right (settings). In the pane that opened you should see three setting Full, Medium and Compact.
Hope this helps address some of the concerns around white space :)
Thanks again,
David Los
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Outlook update SO SLOW!
Outlook update SO SLOW!
Just tried looking for an email which turned out to be a year ago to the day, couldn't remember email address/identity of sender. Scrolling back through history is w-a-a-a-y-y slower than previous.5,166 votesHi, we’ve fixed some things related to performance. Please create new suggestions or add more information if you are experiencing slow performance!
We’ve created a forum which will allow you to better investigate.
Form link:
forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id..
Thanks
Colin
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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
4,853 votesDecember 2017: Thanks for your patience and continued use of the Outlook.com beta! We roll out new improvements every week, and are elated to announce that a recent update opened up this feature to you! You now can sort your message list by Receive Time (default), Sender Name, and Message Size.
We will continue to make other improvements to the Outlook.com beta experience; thanks for your support!
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Annoying colorful circles near the emails
Keep the old look
4,760 votesThanks for the feedback! The colorful circles are what we call Sender Images. If you have a photo for that contact, it will be displayed when you have an email from them. When you don’t have a photo the circles are filled in with color and the initials of the sender.
Now I totally understand that you don’t like them! I know not everyone enjoys every feature we introduce, however we do offer flexibility by disabling them if you don’t like them.
To turn these off do the following:
1) Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner
2) In the Quick Settings Pane that opened look for Sender Photos
3) You can enable or disable the Sender photos right there.Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming!
David Los
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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.
4,557 votesUpdate 11/1:
Now, when you see a single sender in the message list, you can hover over the sender name to see the full email address. Also, when in the reading pane, senders that are not in your safe sender’s list or contacts list will have their full email addresses shown as well.
Thanks for using the Outlook.com beta!
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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.
4,206 votesUpdate November 2017:
We recently updated the Move to dropdown (in the command bar) and the Move to context menu item to prioritize your most-recently used folders. We believe this is an improvement that you will prefer over the fixed alphabetized list.
To create a new folder, simply use the New folder item in the folder pane.
Please enjoy the rest of Outlook.com!
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Infinite scroll makes it impossible to get to old emails
Previous iterations of outlook.com have used pagination or viewport scrolling to allow me to accurately jump to any point in the middle of my inbox. The new layout, however, uses infinite scrolling, meaning that if I want to view a message more than a few days old, I have to scroll to the bottom, wait for a few messages to load, scroll to the bottom, wait for more messages to load, ad infinitum.
In fact, I can't any way in the new inbox of jumping to a historical email. If I can remember that I received an email at the…
4,023 votesThanks for your feedback! We recommend that you use Search to find older emails.
If you click in the search bar, on the right (next to the search icon) you will see a dropdown menu that says “All folders”.
Click on this menu, and then select the date range that you want to search in. Once you’ve applied this date range, you can search within just those dates to see your emails.
Colin
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Reading Pane on the Bottom
I'd like the reading pane on the bottom of the screen.
3,753 votesUpdate 11/1:
You can find a setting now to change the position of the Reading Pane. Your options are on the right, on the bottom, and off.
We hope you enjoy Outlook.com!
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Inbox Rules need to allow for all kinds of triggers and actions
Example: Mail rules currently cannot forward mail.
I need to be able to do more than move to a folder.
3,730 votesThanks for trying the Outlook.com beta! We’re glad to inform that we’ve released an update for inbox rules that allow for all sorts of combinations in settings.
To create an advanced rule, either:
1) Right-click on an email
2) Click “Create rule”
3) Click “More options”
4) Create away!OR
1) Click the settings gear icon in the top right
2) Click “View full settings”
3) Click “Rules”
4) Click “Add new rule”
5) Create away! -
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.
2,684 votes -
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.
2,681 votesUpdate January 2018:
Skype is back! :)
More improvements to the Skype integration will come in the future, but for now, please enjoy the upgraded Skype chat experience!
P.S.: If you wish to mute notifications, you can do so in the Settings panel under General > Skype > Notifications.
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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)
2,644 votesThanks for the feedback!
To turn these off do the following:
1) Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner
2) In the Quick Settings Pane that opened look for Sender Photos
3) You can enable or disable the Sender photos right there.
Thanks for the feedback, and please keep it coming! -
2,326 votes
We’ve now made it possible to block users in non-junk folders.
Select one or more emails and click the “Junk” dropdown in the top menu bar → “Block”, or right-click on the email and select “Block”.
Note: To block users in the Junk email folder, select the “Not junk” dropdown in the top menu bar → “Block”, or right-click on the email and select “Block”.
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Focused and Other - Get Rid Of!
I want one inbox - I didn't ask for two. The other and focused options are so screwed up and annoying; I cannot even imagine why this was done. Most of the time I am getting focused emails in my other and other emails in my focused. How do your algorithms even sort or decide which is which? And why are you deciding? It is my inbox!
1,858 votesFirst off – I want to thank each and every one of your for trying the Outlook.com beta. Also for spending the time to offer and vote on all of the feedback.
I wanted to make sure that we let you all know that we did add some more controls around the Focused/Other inboxes. This includes allowing you to decide if you want it on or off.
We also fixed some bugs to make sure that it keeps your desired setting after you login/log out
To Control Focused Other Do the following:
1) Login to your account and make sure you are in the Beta
2) In the top right hand corner there is a little Gear Icon, click on it.
3) This opens the quick settings pane. From here you can disable Focused/Other, as well as other features like Conversation View, and the reading Pane.Also, as you click…
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Selecting multiple items in Junk folder
Older version allows you to select multiple items, even all items, in Junk and report them as phishing scams. This beta does not and that is a big fail for me.
1,774 votesUpdate 9/19/2017: You can now select and deselect multiple items, then mark as phishing or block. Thanks for using the Outlook.com beta!
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