Testing the ‘New Outlook’ client

Scenario: Below are my notes for testing the ‘New Outlook’ client within your Microsoft 365 version of Outlook. More to come soon.


As of 2/12/2024:

Client Protocol: ’New Outlook’ uses OWA. MAPI is the client protocol used in the ‘Old Outlook’ versions (Microsoft 365, 2019, 2016).


Search: I can easily search the Primary and Archive mailbox from a single Search


PST/OST Files: The ‘New Outlook’ does not yet support offline files


Sweep: Sweep is sweet. Since it’s OWA-based, you can sweep emails via this client.


Access to Shared Mailboxes: Yes, you can access shared mailboxes. However, it has moved to a folder called “Shared with me” in-line with the root folders of your mailbox.  Originally, shared mailboxes were opened a separate mailbox located on the navigational panel where your mailbox/folders exist.


Access to Archive Mailbox: Yes. It’s now located in the “In-Place Archive” folder inline with other root mail folders. It is no longer outside of the primary mailbox.


Look and Feel: It looks and feels like OWA. This client feels lightweight, and does not feel as heavy as the original Outlook client. Because it feels light, I am sure this increases the potential for this client to be missing something important to somebody. Common functionality seems to exist in this client.

It does open multiple ‘New Outlook’ windows if I accidentally click on the full client outlook icon multiple times. Thats annoying.


Rules: The rules in this ‘New Outlook’ are limited to rules you can create in OWA. The full client of Outlook has always been rich in its ruleset and offered conditions and features that were not available for server-side rules. These were commonly known as client-side rules. These rule bells and whistles that are available in the full client, do not appear to be available in the ‘New Outlook’.


CoPilot: The CoPilot technology within this ‘New Outlook’ client (And OWA on the Web) is pretty sweet. The suggestions that CoPilot offers to help draft a new message is helpful, BUT may be a little too formal for my liking. The summary by CoPilot, that automatically reads the email and provides the key points, have been pretty spot on.