Outlook for Windows

Outlook for Windows is an email client and personal information manager developed by Microsoft. It is a replacement for the preloaded Windows Mail, Calendar apps and the contact management People app on Windows 10 and 11 and is preinstalled with all versions of Windows 11 since October 2023 and Windows 10 since February 2025.

History

Outlook for Windows was outlined under Microsoft's 'One Outlook' plan, with testing starting in 2022. In September 2023, Microsoft started transitioning users of the previous apps to the new Outlook. It was released on the Microsoft Store that month, although it remained in preview status for enterprise and education users.

Features

Outlook for Windows is a web app based on the WebView2 runtime, and builds on features found in Outlook on the web. It still lacks some features from Microsoft Outlook, such as support for.pst files, which is due to be added at a future date.
The free version includes advertising and allows IMAP accounts to be set up. It does not support iCloud aliases, but it is able to work offline.

Controversy

Outlook for Windows has attracted controversy surrounding the decision to synchronize emails from non-Microsoft accounts with the Microsoft cloud, rather than downloading the email to local devices as previous Outlook clients have done. Concerns have been raised around the privacy implications of such a system.