Microsoft Announces Outlook for Mac is Now Free to Use

[ghostface147]

What do you mean? Contacts are built in and use the new UI, though the details probably depend on your accounts backend (like a Office 365 server)
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This is what I meant, see how it's grayed out? You can only create contact lists using the old outlook interface. It's been two and half years and they can't figure it how to add contact lists in the new outlook interface. I can only do it in webmail.

 

[Tagbert]

You hate them why?

Best not to ask. That is a big can of worms.

I use outlook web version at work. To be true, it su#%$! Attachments preview works only sometimes. Search function is terrible. No wonder why people prefer Gmail. I hope dedicated App works better.

This is not a web page. It is a local app. Previews are a thing.

 

[Solomani]

Is this better than the default Apple mail client?

Actually yes.

The default Apple Mail is pretty weak-featured as far as email clients go. In fact, wake me up when Apple Mail includes a feature to block or report spam. It does not have that feature. It will let you send unwanted spam/junk mail to your Junk Mailbox, but that's all. It does not BLOCK known spammer domains/addresses, etc. And it does not let you report them.

I really wanted to like Apple Mail, but the client just falls flat. It's just too barebones. Microsoft's Outlook is probably one of the best ones out there. GMail is ok... but it's not any "better" feature-wise than Outlook. Then you have the eternal Google problem of not being trustworthy with anyone's personal data.

I'll only use my GMail account when I need to communicate with my teenage nephews and nieces.... because my GMail email makes me look "kewl" to the kids. If I email them using my Outlook/Hotmail address or even my Apple iCloud address, it makes me look like an old fart uncle who is not kewl, so we don't want any of that mis-perception. 🤣🤣

 

[Tagbert]

Actually yes.

The default Apple Mail is pretty weak-featured as far as email clients go. In fact, wake me up when Apple Mail includes a feature to block or report spam. It does not have that feature. It will let you send unwanted spam/junk mail to your Junk Mailbox, but that's all. It does not BLOCK known spammer domains/addresses, etc. And it does not let you report them.

I really wanted to like Apple Mail, but the client just falls flat. It's just too barebones. Microsoft's Outlook is probably one of the best ones out there. GMail is ok... but it's not any "better" feature-wise than Outlook. Then you have the eternal Google problem of not being trustworthy with anyone's personal data.

GMail is OK when I need to communicate with my teenage nephews and nieces.... because my GMail email makes me look "kewl" to the kids. If I email them using my Outlook/Hotmail address or even my Apple iCloud address, it makes me look like an old fart uncle who is not kewl, so we don't want any of that mis-perception. 🤣🤣

If you are using email with your nieces and nephews you have already lost the “kewl” war. 😆

The only way to win is to not play the game.

 

[Solomani]

If you are using email with your nieces and nephews you have already lost the “kewl” war. 😆

The only way to win is to not play the game.

So very true. No wonder it takes them 2 weeks to respond to my email (via GMail). But only 2 seconds when I text them.

 

[Sovon Halder]

This is what I meant, see how it's grayed out? You can only create contact lists using the old outlook interface. It's been two and half years and they can't figure it how to add contact lists in the new outlook interface. I can only do it in webmail.

Hi,

Does your Outlook>About say "Not Licensed"?

 

[Mamherst]

As others have asked, can this now work with CalDAV? I’ve long wanted and tried to transition to Outlook as it does seem so much more feature rich than Apple Mail. But iCloud is my primary email account and I:
a) don’t want to sync all my data to Microsoft’s servers to access my calendars and contacts when they could be accessed by Microsoft enabling CalDAV
b) even when I tried in the past doing that work around not all calendars synced and it broke the categorisation of certain events

 

[ghostface147]

Hi,

Does your Outlook>About say "Not Licensed"?

License: Microsoft 365 subscription

 

[MrkJensen]

Hmmm, nothing is free, probably phones home a lot with all your data.

Hmmm think macOS with Mail is free or ?

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Our corporate email works just fine in Outlook via Office 365 mail servers. that is for several 10's of thousands of employees.

Then you're either not using the new version of Outlook, but the legacy one or you're not using the Exchange protocol for communicating with the on-Premise server.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/12/microsoft_macos_outlook_changes/
https://www.davidlimonline.com/blog/cannot-add-exchange-or-pop-account-in-new-outlook-for-mac

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/te5c9y

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/svk0m0

 

[boing]

Is it finally possible to calDAV sync contacts and calendars or is this still limited to Exchange accounts? Without being able to see contacts and calendars e-mail clients are useless to me. This works fine in Thunderbird with IMAP accounts but the few times I checked the O365 Outlook client on a Mac it was never an option. I really don't understand how anyone can use that when there isn't any way to sync even just contacts.

CalDAV and CardDAV in Outlook only works if you install this plug-in: https://caldavsynchronizer.org/

Of course I doubt this plug-in will work in the future PWA based versions of Outlook.

If you want native CalDAV and CardDAV support in a feature rich email client (one I find better then Outlook), I suggest eM Client (https://www.emclient.com/)

 

[carestudio]

free is always welcomed and glad MS made the right move.

 

[boing]

Only if you are using Outlook.com email. Ofcourse its like saying Gmail stores your google mail on google servers...

NO it does NOT store your other emails on MS servers. Where do you come up with this BS?

It is not BS:

Sync your account in Outlook to the Microsoft Cloud - Microsoft Support

Explains how to sync your Google, Yahoo, iCloud, and IMAP mail, contacts, and calendar to the Microsoft Cloud.

support.microsoft.com

Michael Tsai - Blog - Outlook Syncing With Microsoft Cloud

mjtsai.com

 

[jchap]

The default Apple Mail is pretty weak-featured as far as email clients go. In fact, wake me up when Apple Mail includes a feature to block or report spam. It does not have that feature. It will let you send unwanted spam/junk mail to your Junk Mailbox, but that's all. It does not BLOCK known spammer domains/addresses, etc. And it does not let you report them.

Apple Mail does include a junk mail filter, which can be enabled or disabled in the Mail preferences. As you might know, it's also possible to create custom rules to block certain addresses or content, or sort specific content with spammy phrases or unknown senders to the trash.

Whether an e-mail client "blocks" an e-mail it flags as spam, or instead "sends" it to a spam folder is a matter of semantics, not of functionality. An e-mail client has to receive and analyze an e-mail (at least by parsing the headers) before it can actually decide to either delete it (meaning send to the trash or to the spam folder on the server, in the case of IMAP) or else put it in a different folder.

As far as spam reporting goes, who would you want it to report spam to? Apple? The sender's domain administrator? A third party?

Have you ever tried SpamSieve, a plugin for Apple Mail?

 

[GrumpyCoder]

If you want native CalDAV and CardDAV support in a fully feature rich email client Outlook replacement, I suggest eM Client (https://www.emclient.com/)

Great client, but no, no and no... nope, sorry: https://www.emclient.com/docs/em-client-privacy-policy.pdf

There are many good email clients out there for Mac, but most have horrible privacy policies. From data collection to storing username and password to your email account on their servers. That doesn't really leave too many options. Apple Mail not really usable for business, Postbox has become a bit of a buggy mess and still no native AS version, Airmail has some issues with UI. Thunderbird... ugly.

 

[boing]

I've used Outlook for Mac as a desktop application several times in the corporate world, and it keeps improving with every iteration through the years. I'd probably jump on this had I not gotten used to how Gmail uses labels (Outlook still uses folder taxonomy), and frankly Apple Mail still feels horrible to me. Still, Outlook is a great app if you think in "folders" and not in "labels." Would have been amazing as an alternate interface to Gmail when it came online back in 2004.

You might want to consider looking at eM Client (https://www.emclient.com/) since it supports both folders and labels, including GMail based labels. I like having a choice between both myself, rather then be forced into on type of organization method.

 

[jchap]

this. It has been going on for multiple versions of MacOS now. Comes and goes. Can never figure out the cause.

Try holding down the SHIFT key and then launching Apple Mail. It's a pain in the butt, but doing this reliably displays the e-mail content for me.

I've noticed this bug for several months now. Now on Monterey, but it may have been an issue in previous macOS versions as well.

 

[boing]

Great client, but no, no and no... nope, sorry: https://www.emclient.com/docs/em-client-privacy-policy.pdf

There are many good email clients out there for Mac, but most have horrible privacy policies. From data collection to storing username and password to your email account on their servers. That doesn't really leave too many options. Apple Mail not really usable for business, Postbox has become a bit of a buggy mess and still no native AS version, Airmail has some issues with UI. Thunderbird... ugly.

According to the link you sent it says "The Company never retrieves and has no access to this data. This includes account data, passwords, e-mails, calendars, tasks, notes, contacts and chat messages. The Company will never access this data for any purposes. All the information we receive from you is listed in the previous paragraph.". The previous paragraphs talk about if you sign-up and use their web pages. For the free version it says "the personal data you provide when you register to use our Services, including your name and e-mail if you are Free version user or name, company name, e-mail and address if you are a Pro user".

So they don't store email account username and password on their servers (other then the account you create with them on their website), and their privacy policy seems similar to about any other proprietary email client. Of course if you worried about anything being sent from your systems, you should be using Linux and Thunderbird because most other proprietary OS and proprietary software probably talks back in some way or another (analytics, licensing check, usage stats, etc..)

 

[jeme]

Not quite sure what you're asking, but the new look has been out for quite awhile now if that's what you're wanting. There should be a toggle switch to turn it on. Or if you're wanting to use other accounts in Outlook, you could have done that already since Outlook would have been unlocked with your 365 subscription.

As for your version and the version found in the App Store, they are essentially the same. The one in the App Store is also 16.70. The only thing different is how they're installed and updated. Sounds like you installed using Microsoft's installer, so you need to use their update tool. If you install through the App Store, then updates are installed through there. I don't like dealing with Microsoft's update tool, so I have installed the Office apps from the App Store (which also works with my enterprise 365 subscription.)

Thanks so much. I guess my question is do I have the Apple Silicon optimized version? My assumption was no, but perhaps I do?

 

[russell_314]

It’s free just like Google made photos storage free till they collected enough user data for their algorithm. If something is free, that means you are the product.

Of course if your main email is Gmail, then go ahead because you’re already being milked for every bit of data you have 😂

 

[GrumpyCoder]

According to the link you sent it says "The Company never retrieves and has no access to this data. This includes account data, passwords, e-mails, calendars, tasks, notes, contacts and chat messages. The Company will never access this data for any purposes. All the information we receive from you is listed in the previous paragraph.". The previous paragraphs talk about if you sign-up and use their web pages. For the free version it says "the personal data you provide when you register to use our Services, including your name and e-mail if you are Free version user or name, company name, e-mail and address if you are a Pro user".

So they don't store email account username and password on their servers (other then the account you create with them on their website), and their privacy policy seems similar to about any other proprietary email client. Of course if you worried about anything being sent from your systems, you should be using Linux and Thunderbird because most other proprietary OS and proprietary software probably talks back in some way or another (analytics, licensing check, usage stats, etc..)

I didn't say they store username and password, others do.
This is enough to avoid emclient:

Information Automatically Collected. We automatically log information about you and your computer or mobile device when you access our Services. For example, when visiting our Services, we log your computer or mobile device operating system name and version, manufacturer and model, browser type, browser language, screen resolution, the website you visited before browsing to our Services, pages you viewed, how long you spent on a page, access times and information about your use of and actions on our Services. We collect this information about you using cookies. Please refer to the sections on cookies, Flash Technology, and Pixel Tags below. Automated Decision Making and Profiling. We may use automated decision making and/or profiling in regards to your personal data for some services and products, for example by providing you with some relevant features suggestion or by offering you a custom promotional offer based on your email information and behavior inside our Services. You can request a manual review of the accuracy of an automated decision that you are unhappy with or limit or object to such automated decision making and/or profiling by contacting us at support@emclient.com

They've also emailed users who used an individual license with their business email demanding payment for a company license and even disabled individual licenses when the users didn't pay. As I said, nope. Postbox and Airmail would be much better choices for privacy in that regard, despite looking not as fancy as emclient or lacking some features.

 

[LonestarOne]

But are they finally supporting Exchange?

And will it support Bedlam?

(Just checking to see if anyone here worked at Microsoft. Only insiders would understand that joke.)

 

[LonestarOne]

So, what does this bode for Microsoft Office?

Currently, there are two non-subscription editions you can buy: “Student and Home Edition“ and “Home and Business Edition”. The only difference, from what I can tell, is that the latter includes Outlook and the former does not.

How does that change, if Outlook is now free?

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Are you currently using it yourself?

Just installed. I love it more than the default Mail app. I don’t have to have a Gmail tab open at all times now. It’s quite a comfy UI too with lots of accessibility options at the start of how you want your mail read. I got it set to read on the right since that’s how I got it at work

Truth be told I like the UI of the Mac version more than the Windows one since the Ribbon isn't taking up so much unnecessary space in the inbox.

 

[boing]

I didn't say they store username and password, others do.
This is enough to avoid emclient:

They've also emailed users who used an individual license with their business email demanding payment for a company license and even disabled individual licenses when the users didn't pay. As I said, nope. Postbox and Airmail would be much better choices for privacy in that regard, despite looking not as fancy as emclient or lacking some features.

What you quoted where you said this is enough to avoid eM Client is basically all the same information that any website with registration and GoogleAds or any analytic software on their website would collect. Turn on your browser privacy protection just like any other website if you don't want someone getting that information. I just fail to see how this is worst then any other proprietary OS or software would obtain.

Where I do have issues is when the data and account information contained in the client is shared or sync'ed to the cloud, such as what Outlook is trying to do now. When it comes to AirMail, I read you have to turn on "Privacy Mode" (https://help.airmailapp.com/en-us/article/privacy-mode-airmail-for-ios-1hrphgb/) to ensure no email data goes through their servers. I would prefer a privacy mode end to end connection (no middle man server) is the only option in an email client, so no, no, no on AirMail. Also have you read AirMail privacy policy (https://airmailapp.com/privacyios.html). So I don't see where AirMail is a much better choice for privacy as you state. Postbox, they collect information also: https://www.postbox-inc.com/legal/privacy

So when it comes to privacy policy, your unfairly targeting eM Client. Now when it comes to the licensing issue you had with them, I never had that issue and have a similar set-up. So if they did that then I agree that is not good, but in my personal experience I never had that issue with them and it seems like a lot of other users don't either. So it feels like your unfairly targeting them. Like I said, if you want real total privacy, go install Linux and use Thunderbird, since that is the best way you will get complete privacy when it comes to an OS and email client.