Microsoft is boasting about the coming ‘offline support’ for the new Outlook but a look at the detail shows its very limited offline access.
The current Outlook desktop apps for Windows and Mac have excellent offline support, meaning you can work on your mail, calendar, contacts even when there’s slow or no Internet access. The ‘new Outlook’ is a web app and is notable for needing a fast and reliable Internet link at all times.
‘New Outlook’ needs proper offline access, among other things, if it’s to become a replacement for Outlook desktop. Instead of doing that, it seems Microsoft is going for a partial fix and hoping they can get away with it.
According to a new item on the Microsoft Roadmap, this is rolling out in October 2023.
“ Outlook: The new Outlook for Windows – Offline support for mail actions and compose
Microsoft 365 Roadmap, feature 178030 with our highlighting.
The first set of offline capabilities in the new Outlook for Windows. Mail, calendar events, and contacts will be stored on your device, so you can view them even when you’re not connected to the internet. Additionally, you can perform key actions on your mail, including flag, move, and delete, and compose messages, to stay productive even when you’re not connected to the internet. “
As usual, it’s important to carefully read these Microsoft promises because, rest assured, they are carefully written.
- The item is for ‘new Outlook for Windows’ specifically. No mention of Mac support.
- Mail, calendar and contacts will be available offline to VIEW only – not to edit.
- Only ‘key actions’ will be available for mail items when offline. Compose is mentioned but not Reply.
Offline support in new Outlook is being done via a Service Worker layer which caches data from the internet and makes it available to the Outlook app if the internet isn’t available. In other words, not the familiar PST/OST files of the current Outlook desktop.
Our advice continues to be AVOID the over hyped ‘new Outlook’ which is nowhere near ready to replace Outlook desktop apps for Windows or Mac. It has a serious privacy leak for any non-Microsoft mailboxes.
New Outlook enforces long-standing Microsoft 365 software license rule
Stop ‘Try the new Outlook’ button appearing
The privacy trap in the New Outlook for Windows
