Microsoft has announced new updates coming to Outlook on the web (Previously Outlook Web App) for Office 365. The updates provide a cleaner and more intuitive interface enhancements as well as some handy new features to provide a really good email experience in the web browser. Here’s some of what’s new:
Inbox features
- Outlook now uses a cleaner UI featuring a new action bar that is also used in the new OneDrive for greater efficiency. The subject line in the inbox is larger and more visible from the rest of the text.
- Users can now pin important or favorite emails to the top of their inbox, and will be highlighted yellow so they know what’s pinned. This enables users to keep important emails not mixed up in the main inbox.
- Sweep enables great email management features. It lets users manage email from specific people by enabling users to keep messages from specific users for a set number of days or messages, or even delete every message from some users.
- There’s a new archive option for emails that lets users quickly move them into another folder of their choice. There’s also an undo button to quickly undo things users didn’t actually mean to do.
- For users who prefer messages in a single line view, users can now see a preview of the email right in line with the subject of the email. Users will additionally be able to do commonly used actions in bulk to quickly and easily.
- When clicking an email from single line mode, the email displays in the same window, not in a separate window.
The ability to resize images easily has been added to Outlook on the web. Users can also rotate images, custom borders, and apply shadow effects. 
Microsoft has improved the way users find their contacts in Outlook by listing their most commonly emailed users as soon as they click a recipient line. 
Other features
In addition to improvements to Outlook’s email related features, Microsoft is also making improvements to Calendar. Users can now view the five day forecast of the weather right from the calendar to make planning a lot easier. 
- The Calendar also does not supports small icons to indicate event types to make it easy to identify specific events in addition to colors. There are several icons to choose from and they will appear in the bottom right corner of an event on the Calendar.
- Email reminders have also been added, so users never miss an event. They can specify which recipients will receive the reminder and include a quick message.
- Events for holidays and birthdays can be viewed along with their work calendar, or separately.
Microsoft has also worked hard on a mobile version of Outlook for the web that should work great on Windows Phone, iOS, and Android devices. Not always can someone use an app to check their email so, for instance, someone needed to borrow someone else’s phone, they can quickly check their email by going to outlook.office365.com from the phone’s browser.
What do you think about the new Outlook for the web? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Further reading: Calendar, Email, Mail, Microsoft, Outlook, Web Apps
