New Outlook vs. Classic Outlook

Microsoft offers at least five distinct products all bearing the name Outlook, and that abundance of products with the same name can certainly lead to confusion. Following last week’s article on the recently released free Outlook for Windows, the responses I received underscored the need to teach a bit more about Outlook’s package names and underlying functionality.

In this article, I intend to concentrate on one very specific aspect of Outlook naming: the distinctions between new Outlook and classic Outlook. It’s important that you understand their differences if you want to fully understand the rapid transformations occurring within the Outlook product ecosystem right now. And at the end of the article, I’ll also clarify the functionality of free Outlook a bit more.

Classic Outlook

Classic Outlook is the long-standing Windows Desktop application that Microsoft has offered for many years. It is the feature-rich, highly stable, and well-regarded mail, calendar, and contacts application that many of us have used for much of our professional careers.

Classic Outlook is the default application that opens when you start almost any paid for any desktop Windows Outlook instance. Whether you have sourced your Outlook from a Microsoft 365 subscription or a boxed set from Amazon, the initial experience will be classic Outlook.

The only exception to this is the free Windows Desktop Outlook I discussed in last week’s article. The free Outlook I describe there, whose icon is labeled Outlook (new) on your Windows 11 PC Start menu, launches by default into the new Outlook application. However, you can immediately switch it to classic Outlook if desired.

So that’s classic Outlook. We all know it and have used it for years. Let’s talk more about new Outlook next.

What Is New Outlook?

Since 2023, Microsoft has been previewing a comprehensive reimagining of Windows Desktop Outlook called new Outlook. Interestingly, Microsoft’s official designation for this important new version is simply “new Outlook,” with a lowercase “new” employed in that official name. That’s a modest name given how critical this version of Outlook is to Microsoft’s future vision of its productivity ecosystem, and given how radically different it is from previous Outlook versions. Even though at first blush it looks merely like a simplified version of classic, its underlying architecture is vastly different, and its position within Microsoft’s ecosystem is remarkably important.

New Outlook is a complete top-to-bottom rewrite of classic Outlook based on a web-centric architecture. Its key importance is that the new architecture enables robust integration with Microsoft cloud productivity apps, including To-Do, Teams, Planner, Loop, Project for Web, and more. The ultimate result will be a suite of apps that all work together almost as one. And at the time I released this video, that goal has been mostly met. 

How to Launch New Outlook

Up to recently, the main way to launch new Outlook in Windows was to open a subscription-based version of Classic Outlook and immediately activate the “Try the new Outlook” switch in the upper right corner; that opened new Outlook. And while that’s still a primary method, in last week’s article, I showed an alternative method for launching New Outlook: You simply locate the application icon named “Outlook (new)” within your Start menu and click it—this opens new Outlook. Once there, you can either continue using new Outlook or transition back to classic mode by toggling the “Try the new Outlook” switch to “Off.” If the “Outlook (new)” app icon is not yet installed on your Windows 11 computer and you need a free copy of Outlook, you can conduct a search for “Outlook for Windows” in the Microsoft Store and install it

Another outcome of the complete rewrite of Outlook is that the new desktop Outlook is now effectively identical to Outlook for the Web, the browser version of Outlook. So, if you are working away from your computer and perhaps using someone else’s, you can launch new Outlook in any web browser on any device.

One key benefit of that is this: Even though Microsoft is not releasing a Mac version of new desktop Outlook, if a Mac user opens Outlook for the Web in a web browser, they will reach new Outlook. 

New Outlook Rollout

As I said, this new Outlook enables a remarkable level of integration with a long list of products within Microsoft’s new cloud app ecosystem. I especially like the integration with the tasks app To Do. However, as a preview product, Microsoft’s new Outlook has been in a state of limited support and light customer adoption.

That changed on August 1, 2024. On that date, the new Outlook officially entered General Availability (GA) mode, marking its transition from a preview novelty to a fully supported product. This advancement positions new Outlook as Microsoft’s latest production version of Outlook, replacing the classic Outlook as the primary mail, calendar, and contacts application. While classic Outlook remains prominently available and in majority use, Microsoft is now actively promoting the new version. It’s clear they want new Outlook to be the primary Outlook in use, and sooner rather than later. The reason: to close the circle on their suite of cloud-based apps.

Some say, however, that releasing new Outlook to GA now is too soon because many basic features are not yet programmed into the new Outlook. And that’s true; there are a significant number of classic features unavailable and pending release. As a result, some people who try the new Outlook decide to switch back to classic.

But I personally have made peace with those feature gaps. I have found that, with minor efforts, for my specific work requirements, I can work around nearly all of the new Outlook’s current shortfalls. And if I cannot work around a missing feature, I temporarily flip the Try the new Outlook toggle to Off and use classic Outlook to access what features I need, when I need them. But I always switch right back to new Outlook because its integration with To Do is so important to me. 

Plus, week by week, Microsoft developers are rapidly filling in the feature gaps. I truly feel it won’t be long before new Outlook reaches and passes feature parity with classic Outlook. If you want to see the current state of missing features, and assess Microsoft’s progress on fixing them, this link will take you to the new Outlook section of Microsoft’s feature and bug tracking system.

Free Outlook vs. Subscription Outlook

To close this article, let me talk a bit more about the related topic of my last article, which was about the free desktopOutlook product that Microsoft is rolling out to all Windows 11 users in 2024. How does that compare to new and classic Outlook?

First, the free Outlook’s official name is Outlook for Windows, and its icon is labeled with the name Outlook (new). It replaces the old, free, Mail and Calendar apps normally provided by Windows OS. Like the Mail and Calendar apps it replaces, it too is free. Microsoft is auto-installing it during OS updates in 2024, and you probably have it now on your computer; again, look for the app icon named Outlook (new). If you don’t see it, you can go to the Microsoft Store, search for Outlook for Windows, and install it at no charge, if you want or need it.

Many users are getting confused about this free app, though. They are confusing the word “free” with “new,” and that’s understandable given the name displayed on the icon; but you need to look beyond that unfortunate icon name.

So let me be clear. This free copy of Outlook for Windows, even though it has the word “new” in its icon name, is effectively the same app that you get when you pay for subscription Outlook. Like subscription Outlook, once installed and launched, it supports both classic Outlook and new Outlook. Again, both modes are supported in this free version. One distinction from subscription is the free version launches initially into new Outlook, thus the name on the icon; but once open, you can toggle it back into classic if you want. The same with the subscription copy of Outlook, it too can be toggled into either the classic mode or the “new” mode. So again, the free Outlook is effectively identical to subscription Outlook in both new and classic mode. 

What this tells me is that Windows 11 users are getting quite a deal. They truly are getting the full and powerful desktop version of Outlook, both classic and new, which is typically a $100 value. I think that’s something to celebrate!

Here are some next steps to consider: 

• If you want to learn more about the free desktop Outlook, read last week’s article. 
• To read Microsoft’s reasoning for releasing a free desktop Outlook, go to this link about Windows Mail and Calendar becoming new Outlook. 
• And to learn how to use To Do with my advanced MYN task system, and with new Outlook, go to this link.

Office 365 and Microsoft 365

One final point. We sometimes get questions about Office 365 and Microsoft 365 and how they line up version wise with Classic and New.

They don’t line up. Office 365 and Microsoft 365 are not versions per se, rather they are licensing plans. They are ways to pay for Outlook (and other Microsoft products like Word, Excel, and so on). Specifically, they are subscription plans, not versions.

The Office 365 name showed up about 8 years ago, and represents deployment of Outlook, Word, Excel, and so on, in whatever the latest versions of those products are at the time. So it includes both classic and new. The Microsoft 365 name showed up about 4 years ago, and represents Office 365 plus a whole suite of other web-centric software products like Teams, Loop, Planner, and so on that all work together.

So, you should essentially ignore the names Office 365 and Microsoft 365 when trying to talk about Outlook feature sets. Rather, focus on classic and new.