There are ten new or improved features in Outlook (new) for Windows. Some are welcome additions, others are ‘catch up’ from classic Outlook and one Microsoft is ‘thrilled’ about but we’re not sure why.
Here’s Microsoft’s June 2025 announcements plus Office Watch extra info, screenshots and comments. As regular readers know, we don’t take Microsoft’s statements at face value.
We’ve rearranged Microsoft’s list to put like items together. In particular, Microsoft ‘accidently’ put the mention of disabling Copilot at the very bottom of feature list, way below the other Copilot items.
Copilot for all mailboxes in Outlook
This is great news. Consumer Microsoft 365 customers can now use Copilot features in any mailbox setup in Outlook (new) instead of just the mailbox / Microsoft account with Copilot access. Here’s Copilot appearing in a message from a mailbox with no direct Copilot privileges.
“ When logged into Outlook with an account that has access to Copilot Pro or AI credits through a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription, Copilot features will be available for all connected email accounts. This includes Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, Live.com, MSN.com, and third-party providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, and iCloud, as long as they are logged into Outlook on the same device. Learn more by visiting Sharing Copilot in Outlook.”
Not Business, Enterprise or other non-consumer Microsoft plans.
Disable Copilot in Outlook
Here’s a rare example of Microsoft UNDERselling a feature.
To disable Copilot, open the Settings window and visit the Copilot > Copilot control page. From there, you can switch the Turn on Copilot control off.
All that’s true, what’s not mentioned is that the Copilot on/off settings is separate for each mailbox. Meaning you can choose to have AI help in some mail accounts or none.
Custom Copilot email styles per mailbox
Not on Microsoft’s list of new features but worth a mention is Copilot ‘Draft Instructions’. These are saved settings that Copilot will always use when drafting messages. Setup a preferred greeting, length and tone (writing style) per mailbox. This saves you typing the same AI instructions each time.
Get email coaching with Copilot
Email coaching is a helper for drafting a message. As always with AI help, it can be a useful starter but rarely able to produce a suitable final text without human intervention. In a message edit go to Copilot | Coaching.
Have an important email to write and want to feel confident that it effectively conveys your intended message? With Copilot in Outlook, you can get helpful suggestions on how to adjust the tone, clarity, and reader sentiment before you hit send. Learn more by visiting Get email coaching with Copilot in Outlook.
Move emails between accounts
Way overdue, but now some users can easily move emails between mailboxes. But only some paying customers get this essential feature.
Consumer users can now seamlessly move emails between their personal accounts, streamlining organization and productivity.
For Enterprise users, this feature is off by default and is controlled by a policy managed by administrators. By enabling this policy, admins can grant their users the ability to move emails between accounts in a way that aligns with organizational needs and policies.
External tag in contact suggestions
Good for organizations, any contacts outside the company get an ‘External’ tag to remind users not to share some information.
An External tag will be added to contact suggestions that appear in the dropdown when entering contacts in the email compose form.
Reply and forward emails in a PST file
Slowly, step by step, Microsoft is adding some level of PST support into Outlook (new).
With this update of support for .pst files (also known as Outlook Data File) in the new Outlook for Windows, users will be able to reply and forward emails in a .pst file. Future releases of new Outlook will expand the support for .pst file capabilities.
Offline “Days of email to save” expanded to 30 days
The alleged ‘offline’ support in Outlook (new) is still far short of Microsoft promises … we know this from bitter experience. The latest ‘feature’ is merely changing the default offline storage to the last 30 days … big deal. Change the age at Settings | General | Offline | Days of email to save.
The default mail sync window in offline mode has been expanded from 7 days to 30 days.
Offline support still has a lot of work to make Outlook (new) truly appropriate for working when there’s a slow, erratic or no Internet access.
The selection of folders to save offline is still limited and not properly documented. ‘Days of email to save’ has a maximum of 180 days but no more.
Offline search folders
Search folders now appear when Outlook (new) is offline … however Outlook (new) Search Folders are still quite limited compared to ‘real’ Outlook (classic). The (new) Search Folders don’t have the filtering options available in (classic), in particular there’s no ‘Custom Search Folder’ option available.
Search folders, which help users group emails based on certain criteria, are now available while offline.
Undo send while offline
Another example of Microsoft boasting about a ‘new’ feature that should have been available from the beginning.
The ability to cancel an email message after you’ve selected Send is now supported offline.
Add shared folders to Favorites
“Thrilled” – really? It doesn’t take much to get Microsoft thrilled if allowing shared folders to be added to Favorites is somehow exciting. We’d have been more thrilled if shared folders in Favorites had been possible from the beginning.
We’re thrilled to announce that you can now add shared folders to your Favorites. This enhancement offers increased flexibility and convenience, allowing easy access to important shared content directly from your Favorites list.
All about Outlook new for Windows
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