There’s (yet another) Outlook app available. Outlook Lite is a better ‘scaled down’ version of the Outlook Mobile app. Officially it’s only available in certain countries but we had no trouble installing Outlook Lite, so maybe you can try it too.
Microsoft has deployed its full range of marketing buzzwords to sell Outlook Lite. It will ‘empower’ as a “solution” for “lightweight” mobile devices that don’t have all the “capabilities”.
In other words, it’s a leaner, more efficient version of the bloated Outlook mobile app which requires a powerful and expensive device to work properly.
Outlook Lite is designed to work properly on both cheaper and older devices but it’ll work on any supported Android smartphone.
And it runs very well, considerably faster than the full Outlook app. Outlook Lite has the advantage of no clutter from all the extras that Microsoft has lumbered into the main app.
Outlook Lite works best with Microsoft hosted mailboxes; Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live, MSN, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Exchange Online accounts.
Microsoft is quite vague about the features and limitations of Outlook Lite. There are unconfirmed reports the the app won’t connect to Microsoft hosted work or school mailboxes. That may be a limitation imposed by the organization’s admins, not the app itself.
Gmail, Yahoo and other mailboxes
There’s now support for Gmail, Yahoo and other mailboxes, according to this image supplied by Microsoft
Email, Calendar, Contacts
It includes email, calendar and contacts with icons at the bottom for each. Switching between the three panes is refreshingly quick.
The device only needs 1GB of memory (RAM) and takes up a mere 5MB for the app, plus whatever is needed to store mailbox data on the device.
According to Microsoft, Outlook Lite has low battery usage and works on all networks including 2G and 3G.
Extras for Indian users
In late November 2023, Outlook Lite got some extra features for users registered in India.
Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati are currently supported. More languages and dialects will be added in future to cover the amazing linguistic diversity of India.
SMS messages are integrated into the single Inbox with translation options promised for a coming update.
Who gets Outlook Lite – officially?
Outlook Lite is for Android devices only, available via Google Play.
Officially, Outlook Lite is available to users registered in: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela.
But that’s not the whole story …
We successfully installed Outlook Lite using a UK based Google Play account via the standard Google Play link.
Another surprise, Outlook Lite can be installed on the same device as the Outlook mobile app.
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