New Version Of Outlook
Anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook in 2025 will now being seeing a prompt to upgrade to the “New Outlook” on your screens with a neat little flip switch on the top right of your screens. I am a very long time user of Outlook since the version first version and can remember back when the logo was yellow – yes I am that old. But before you flip the switch to the new version there are some things you should know…
- Passwords – NONE of the password on your none Microsoft email accounts will be transferred over in the upgrade. You will have to take note of what the passwords are/were and then when you upgrade you will get prompted to re – enter each of the passwords to reconnect. In my case two email Accounts disappeared altogether and I had to add them in from scratch again.
- Archives – The concept of Archiving to offline PST files doesnt seem to exist in the new version. I presume the thinking is that Microsoft want to you buy more cloud storage and use their space instead of saving emails to your own device.
- PST Files – Offline PST files are gone which means that Importing or Exporting emails which was really handy when migrating hosting providers is now gone.
- Copy Address – You used to be able to right click on a email address in an email and copy to the senders address. It no longer works – its a small but irritating bug.
- Drag and Drop – I use multiple email accounts (more than 10) for different parts of my business so often needed to drag an email from one account eg info@jascom.ie to accounts@jascom.ie. You can no longer do this and have to forward the email.
- Menu Structure – The old File, Menu structure is gone. There used to be alot of rarely used but hand features on the File Menu but have been entirely replaced with just Home, View and Help
- Send & Receive – Is gone … I always thought it was a handy featured esp if troubleshooting an email issue. Not there is a non specific wait till emails arrive or not.
Other Changes
Limited rules and custom mail handling
Fewer calendar customization options
No offline mode (everything relies on cloud sync)
Limited support for third-party COM add-ins
Some advanced settings (like multiple signatures, delayed send customization) are missing
No integration with certain Exchange on-premise setups
The Good News (allegedly)
Unified App
Faster Performance
Cleaner Interface
Pin Emails To Top
Integration with Ms-Copilot
Summary
I can see why Microsoft are doing this. All software needs to be improved and streamlined. Creating this version more like an app or web version means lighter product for the consumer, easier updates for MS and more compliance around Accessibility and Security, Integration with AI tools like Co-Pilot is now much easier as I am “assuming” Co-Pilot now has access to read your emails, calendar and todo lists – same way as Gmail does for Google.
Roll Back To Classic Outlook
You can roll back to the old version – for now anyway. I expect MS to work on some of these missing features based on customer feedback. I sent them a list about a month ago but havent had a reply. I have the old and new version on two different devices as I still need some of the old functionality for some technical migration tasks. So before you upgrade have a think about some of the features that are not available in “New Outlook”.
